March 14 - Lauenburg and the Hebewerk

As promised on the news the night before, the day dawned clear and warm. The weather report the night before had really taken the possibility of sunshine seriously—they showed “sunshine bands” for all of Germany that gave the expected hours of sunshine for each region just like the bands of expected snow fall they give on weather maps back in Virginia. Taking the trouble to put “expected hours of sunshine” bands on the map showed as much respect for sunshine as we have for snow, and that’s a lot of respect!

Heinke and Gustl were coming by about 10:30, so we cleaned up around the house a bit before they came. Monika also had the bright idea of hanging the two plates we had earned for completing the walk in Schleswig on the chimney over the fireplace. I used holes already there (spare holes I had aplenty in almost every wall!) and hung the plate depicting a hawk on the left and the one with an owl on the right. It looked great—the place was getting to look downright homey!

Heinke and Gustl brought some critical things with them including a mattress for the one spare bed frame we had for Lois plus a pillow and more bedding. She warned us, however, that it was her very last pillow! Gustl thought a trip upstream on the Elbe might be fun, so he drove that way for an “ausflug” (short trip). I enjoyed sitting in the back seat and watching the scenery roll by—I was amazed that the fields already seemed green while just the day before on the train ride to Schleswig they seemed completely bare. This was the first spring-like day we had experienced in Germany, but I just couldn’t believe that things would turn green overnight! It was almost as if everything was ready to pounce on the first day of spring and start growing like mad for the rest of the rather short growing season they have at this latitude. In any case, the landscape certainly gave a different impression in the sunlight and warm air than it had the day before—even the trees had a green sheen that indicated they were budding out and I’m sure that contributed to the change.

We stopped off for a walk at the Stausee (dammed lake), an interesting hydro-electric installation. The electric company pumps water from the Elbe into the lake during off-peak periods and then uses the dammed water to generate hydroelectric power during the peak periods. This probably saved the utility company from having to build more generating stations for peak periods, and that is a jolly good thing. As it is, the Green party in Germany is staunchly anti-nuclear power, and I read that they were trying to shut down 12 of Germany’s nuclear plants because they were judged as being too susceptible to terrorist threats. The Stausee installation also had a windmill and field of solar panels, so they clearly were exploring alternative energy sources, which was also attested to by the fields of windmills that seemed to spout in many farm fields (see also Wanderung 2).

I saw my first butterflies of the year while we were walking around the Stausee, which I took to be a certain harbinger of better weather to come. In fact, I was surprise to see butterflies pop up so suddenly after the rather bitter, below freezing weather we had been having the last couple of weeks. They must have been desperately waiting for a warm day, but where were they hiding, anyway, in their cocoons? Still, I felt it was a positive sign of spring, just like all the motorcycles that were suddenly roaring up and down the highways. Ah spring!

After a short hike we hopped back into the car and drove a little further upstream to the city of Lauenberg, which is just a short distance downstream from the old border between West and East Germany. A canal runs from Lauenberg almost straight north to Luebeck and the first set of canal locks can be easily seen from the city. But the main attraction in Lauenberg was the “old town” section that runs right along the shore of the Elbe. The newer sections of the city are located on the bluff above the Elbe and are probably a lot less likely to flood than the old section, but goodness did the old section have a lot of very old and picturesque buildings! Many of the buildings dated from around 1600 and were of a beam and masonry construction that had sagged or tilted here and there with age. Some buildings also had sayings carved on the wood beams facing the street, but I had a hard time deciphering those. We spent at least an hour meandering up and down the narrow, crooked cobblestone streets before we stopped off to have lunch at a bar/restaurant.

In the restaurant Gustl secured a great table for us right on the waterfront —the sunlight was gleaming off the Elbe right beside us and we could watch the gulls and occasional river craft pass by. It was a gorgeous sight and also quite good food. Heinke and I had the chicken breast but I also got some of Monika’s “Jaegerschnitzel”, a kind of long, thin, breaded pork chop that was delicious! Gustl had smoked eel and seemed to enjoy it, but that may be an acquired taste. I might try it some time, but first I would have to carefully not think about the critter it came from because eels have always seemed a bit slimy and snake-like to me and eating a slimy snake just isn’t appealing on the face of it. If I have to eat dog in china, I surely hope I can’t decipher the pictogram for “dog” so I don’t know if I’m eating one!

To finish off the afternoon, Gustl drove us south to the “Hebewerke” (literally: hoisting apparatus), which is a huge elevator for hoisting canal boats up from the level of the Elbe and surrounding canals to the canal network that leads to the middle of Germany. The German network of canals is surprisingly extensive and being expanded and modernized in part to prevent ever more tractor trailers from crowding the road network. Now these canal boats are not the tiny picturesque things that I’ve seen on trips to England; they are more like the full-sized barges we have in the U.S. on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. So this barge-lifting apparatus was just gargantuan in size; so big I couldn’t really get good photographs of the whole thing but instead had to approach it piecemeal.

The barge lifts were actually two absolutely huge elevators, each of which was an entire pool or basin about 10 meters wide by about 100 meters long. Imagine a metal swimming pool as long as a football field and about 34 yards wide, then imagine that thing going up and down like an elevator carrying a ship inside and you’ll have the general impression of the Hebewerke. Gustl told me about the counterweights inside the towers that support these things (which must be huge!), and remarked that the weight would be the same regardless of whether a ship was in the water or not. For a second I was surprised, but them I remembered the principle of Archimedes that a floating body would displace exactly that much weight in water, so it all made sense. It also, of course, made the design of the counterweights much simpler than if they had to change to accommodate different weights of ships.

We climbed 182 steps to the upper level of the canal, where I took some pictures while catching my breath. Gustl told us a story about the time he was on the border with East Germany and took a picture of himself with the flags in the background. Then a East German border guard came up to him, told him it was not allowed to take pictures, and demanded his film. I don’t know about you, but if an armed border guard demanded my film, I’d just take it out of the camera and give it to him. But Gustl said that the prohibition was not posted anywhere and refused to turn over his film, so the guard then took him in custody and went to his superior officer. The officer asked what Gustl had photographed and he told him “Just myself and some of the flags here”. The officer looked him over and considered it carefully for a moment, and then said, “Well, in your case you can just take your film and go!” We all had a good laugh and went back down the 182 steps, which was a lot easier than coming up!

We were fortunate that just as we returned past the lower level of the lock one of the lifts came down in preparation for a ship coming upstream from the Elbe. We watched in awe as this huge pool-on-an-elevator came down with surprisingly little fuss and noise. After descending to the full “down” position, the watertight doors on the downstream end were opened to allow the ship to enter. The ship, however, was still approaching from way downstream and we didn’t want to wait too long, so Heinke and I took our last pictures and we all clambered back in the car for the trip back to Reinbek.

Back in Reinbek we had just enough chairs available downstairs in the kitchen and living room (4 exactly) to invite Heinke and Gustl to Kaffeetrinken. When we do this as a rule Heinke and Monika have the coffee while Gustl and I, not wanting to be awake all night, have some kind of herbal tea, usually rose hip or peppermint. After chatting for a bit, they took off with a bag of our laundry (Heinke graciously was going to wash it for us!), and we set up for our evening ritual of dinner, fire, TV, read book, and bed.