Table of contents
- Motorcycle trip along the North Sea coast Lighthouses – the summit crosses of the north
- Crap in old classrooms
- Europe’s highest
- Fresh fish right on the palm of your hand
- Info
Daams
17th pictures
Daams
1/17
Always in the sights of the two-wheeler captains: lighthouses in all colors, shapes and facets.
Daams
2/17
South of the north represents that “North Sea car museum” Junk on display.
Daams
3/17
Curiosities from the coast: The Pilsum lighthouse was once staged by Otto.
Daams
4/17
When the hunger pangs, fresh fish is on hand.
Daams
5/17
Even without a nautical map, real landlubbers will not miss the beacon of the Campener Tower.
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6/17
The pilots have long been off board: the lightship “German Bight” has had its day and is now firmly anchored in Emden.
Daams
7/17
Even in the evening you can hear in the hotel “Old high school” a warm one in Husum “Hello”.
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8/17
The beacon in Kampen on Sylt marks our finale on the tour from southwest to northeast.
Daams
9/17
As soon as the sun has disappeared, the fog rises from the march: blue hour at Husum.
Daams
10/17
Sun, wind: watt most sea? Motorcycling in the north is pure deceleration. And yet things are progressing.
Daams
11/17
Out and about under wind turbines in Butjadingen.
Daams
12/17
Off to the Westerhever lighthouse.
Daams
13/17
Today’s tower culture is more likely to make things shine: stands for offshore wind farms in Bremerhaven.
Daams
14/17
In East Friesland, clouds not only adorn the sky, but are also a must at the classic tea ceremony.
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15/17
Classic North Sea culture at Cape Horns. The steely one “coffee grinder” von Eckwarden has now also had its day.
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16/17
Where does the wind blow from? Directly behind the dikes, ancient trees are silent witnesses of the storms.
Daams
17/17
On the way back to the mainland, we are happy to be loaded.
to travel
Motorcycle trip along the North Sea coast
Motorcycle trip along the North Sea coast
Lighthouses – the summit crosses of the north
Europe’s highest is in the south-west, and Germany’s high society is gathering in the north-east. But these are by no means all the highlights of a trip from Camping / Ostfriesland to Kampen / Sylt. Always in the sights of the two-wheeler captains: the summit crosses of the north – lighthouses! In all colors, shapes and facets.
Jorg Lohse
04/25/2013
The sun is sinking behind the top of the dike. Immediately thick fog rises from the marsh and makes the animals in the pasture appear like bizarre mythical creatures. We stop the engines and let the out of the world scene work. An oasis of calm, but by no means quiet. The wind rustles in the ears, the screeching of the seagulls mixes with moaning and moaning. Isn’t there the snorting of a horse that thunders through the white nothing with a dull hoofbeat? School days are suddenly back, the yellow Reclam booklet in front of my eyes: “I didn’t hear anything; but more and more clearly, when the half moon let down a meager light, I thought I recognized a dark figure, and soon, as it came closer, I saw it, it was sitting on a horse, a long-legged, gaunt white horse; a dark coat fluttered around her shoulders, and two burning eyes with a pale face looked at me as we passed by. “Before Theodor Storm’s” Schimmelreiter “actually casts us under its spell, we spur our steely horses again and watch that we are gaining land.
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Crap in old classrooms
After 400 kilometers our stomach sags, and a bed for the night wouldn’t be bad either. Husum is close by, and in the poet’s birth town, as it has been all day, another lighthouse crosses our path, this time marking the entrance to the old grammar school. Where schoolchildren used to have to recite Storm’s novella, you can now sleep with impunity: There are now beds in the old classrooms, and the schoolhouse has actually turned into a real penne. So we like to be transported back to school.
The next morning the blue sky shines over the gray city by the sea, and there is a yawning emptiness in the harbor basin. Viewed at low tide, the North Sea actually looks as if it cannot cloud a little bit of water. But what power it can develop at any time was not only experienced painfully by Storm’s tragic character, the dikemaster Hauke Haien, through the death of his wife and child.
It was just five decades ago that Blanke Hans rolled over the North Frisian coast in 1962, dykes broke, the cattle drowned in agony in some places and thousands of people had to be evacuated into the hinterland. And even if today the lighthouses on the coastline are romantically transfigured in the eye of the beholder and sometimes serve as kitschy advertising motifs: In the age before radar and GPS, they made decisions about life and death, they were the first to ensure that ship crews were really safe in some Could enter the port. This is also the case with the lightship “German Bight”, which can now be viewed as a floating museum in Emden’s Ratsdelft. “Today everything goes via satellite, of course,” says Erhard Bolenz, chairman of the association for the promotion of the museum ship, “the captains are laughing at the old technology.”
Europe’s highest
But we are fascinated by the old technology and, with MS Ducati and the Kumo Buell, are aiming for Europe’s highest at the start of our tour, which has been an important sign of shipping in Dollart at 65 meters above sea level not far from Emden on the dike of Campen since 1891 to this day puts. You need 308 steps to get to the very top through the steel framework, which the Paris Eiffel Tower served as a model. The view over the Krummhorner coast would appeal to us, but no sightseeing is possible today – which doesn’t really bother us with a view of thickly padded station wagons and heavy motorcycle boots.
So we prefer to take the straight streets of Krummhorn under our wheels and arrow over to Pilsum, where Germany’s supposedly most famous lighthouse is. Even if the knobbly structure has a very long-lasting effect on the viewer due to its shape as an oil barrel with pointed cap – the tower is said to have only achieved its real fame in the first Otto film. And it will probably be immortalized by hobby filmmakers on countless other films by now. The operation for the Christian seafaring was stopped again in 1915 after just 24 years, but every year over 200 couples in love are led up the eleven meter high tower into the port of marriage. In addition, numerous oaths of loyalty from all over the world adorn the red and yellow outer skin.
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Fresh fish right on the palm of your hand
So much love goes through the stomach, of course, and Reimundes and Bernhard’s food truck nearby has a really seductive smell. A serving of freshly fried kibbeling with garlic sauce is just the thing. Which lighthouse should we head for next? We ask the real East Frisians. They just look pityingly at our street yachts: “You’d have to go over to the islands to send them properly,” says Reimunde, “but not with the motorbikes, they would only be allowed on Borkum and Norderney.”
Daams
When the hunger pangs, fresh fish is on hand.
To refresh our knowledge of geography, Bernhard gives us the donkey bridge for the sequence of the East Frisian islands with us on the way (“Which sailor is in Nelly’s bed?”) And presses a fresh matjes roll into our fists as a consolation. We set course for Wilhelmshaven and hope to catch a glimpse of the Arngast lighthouse from there, but the view over the Jade Bay remains cloudy. Only in the Butjadinger Land can we make contact with our luminous guide posts again.
In Eckwardersiel we meet Michael Janben, who is inspecting the Eckwarden upper fire for the last time, which has since gone out of operation. For Wilhelmshaven’s new deep-sea port, the Jade-Weser-Port, a completely new leading light line has to be set up out in the Wadden Sea, explains the 42-year-old sea mark checking engineer. After all: The “coffee mill” from Cape Horne, which towers up into the sky, is to be preserved as a walk-in landmark.
In Nordenham we cross the Weser and look over at the high maritime flair of Bremerhaven. You pass one of Germany’s oldest, the Loschenturm, whose light has grazed the North Sea coast since 1855. And guaranteed a wistful greeting from their old homeland to many an emigrant on his hopeful way to the New World. On the way to the overseas port, we leave “The last bar before New York” on the right and prefer to look at the unbelievable diversity of the automotive world that rolls ashore from mighty freighters. A real paradise for car spotters. But we have long since decided to end the day on Germany’s most beautiful and, like the Jever man, just let ourselves fall into the green grass on the dike at Westerheversand.
In the engine room of Multistrada and Ulysses, the pistons are hammering at full speed while Brokdorf, Brunsbuttel and Busum fly past us. Done, the plan works, and a new one is forged for the next morning: from the Danish town of Rømø by ferry over to Sylt, where the “List Ost” tower greets us at the elbow. Then down the island highway to fashionable Kampen, where there is still a pretty chic one in black and white? But now it is first of all: no traffic jams, no hectic rush…
Info
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Duration of the trip: 3 days; Distance covered: 750 kilometers.
Curves are of course in short supply on the coast. In the north between East and North Frisia, however, there is no need to complain about a lack of motorcycle enjoyment. Our tips for last-minute weekend (-end) tourists.
Getting there: Our tour starts in the port city of Emden on the Ems estuary, the Dollart. The fastest way from the south: via the A 1 / A 28 (direction Bremen / Oldenburg) or directly via the “Ostfriesenspieb” A31, which leads from Oberhausen to the coast.
Lighthouses: A rich information package on the steel or stone giants on the coast can be put together on the museum ship “German Bight” in Emden, which from 1919 initially on the Amrumbank station off the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein and later in the German Bight as a “floating lighthouse” was in use until 1983 (information: www.amrumbank.de). For detailed planning, we recommend the “See (h) maps” Ostfriesland / Jadebusen / Elbe and West Coast Schleswig-Holstein (ISBN 978-3-926137-28-9 or -29-3, each 4.95 euros), on which all Lighthouses on the German North Sea coast with important dates are shown.
One of the most striking is the Roter Sand lighthouse, which stands on the open sea in the Outer Weser and can only be viewed by ship (day tours € 88.50). The overnight stay in the historic building on the open sea is not cheap, but guaranteed to be unique (from two days, including ship transfer and meals, from 556 euros). Information on this at www.roter-sand.de. If you park your motorcycle in Sahlenburg or Duhnen near Cuxhaven, you can visit Germany’s oldest fire bearer, the fortified tower on the island of Neuwerk, built in the Middle Ages, by hiking through the mudflats or by horse-drawn carriage and also spend the night there. Information and inquiries at www.leuchtturmneuwerk.de
Arrival Sylt: As an alternative to loading a car in Niebull-Westerland, Germany’s northernmost island can also be reached by ferry from Rømø, which docks in List in the north. The prices for motorcyclists are almost the same. The Rømø-List passage costs 26 euros for a motorcycle plus driver, and the trip in the “Sylt Shuttle” over Hindenburgdamm to Westerland in the south costs 27 euros. Information and bookings at www.syltshuttle.de or www.syltfaehre.de
Stay: We recommend the hotel “Altes Gymnasium” in Husum (single room / breakfast from 89 euros, phone 0 48 41/83 30, www.altes-gymnasium.de). Another tip: the country hotel “Kirchspielkrug” by the lighthouse in Westerhever (single room / breakfast from 55 euros, phone 0 48 65/9 01 43 www.kirchspielkrug.de).
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