My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer
Sunday, 16 February, 2025
One of the tours offered by MSC was to Lübeck, Germany. I hadn’t heard of Lübeck, which made it all the more intriguing. A couple of days before the tour, the Cruise Director called me into the office and told me that I had new desk hours with more hours on port days – I would sit in a lounge for an hour in the morning, and an hour in the afternoon and then two hours in the evening. I told the Shore Excursions Manager I wouldn’t be able to go to Lübeck after all – the meeting time was during my desk hours.
After a couple of weeks of this schedule, I got a call from the Shore Excursions Manager- they really needed an escort for Lübeck the next day. Was I available? I’d been in my new schedule for long enough to know that no guests had actually shown up to my morning lounge shift, so I asked the new Cruise Director (who had been my new boss for one day) if I could leave a little early and return a little late. He agreed, and just like that, I was finally going to Lübeck!
The next morning I woke up early to change rooms, check out and check in at reception, do most of my hour of sitting in the lounge and then bundle up to show up at the meeting point!
The guide started the tour with a drive around the harbor so we could see views of the ship we perhaps hadn’t yet seen:
Then after about 45 minutes we arrived outside the city of Lübeck.
It was really pretty.
The streets were cobbled, the sun was out, the buildings leaned on each other like close friends.
To me, Lübeck felt more like the Netherlands than Germany. I was starting to have a difficult time remembering which country I was in.
I was assigned to the back of the group as the escort, which meant my job was to make sure nobody got left behind. Turns out, a solid half of the group did not speak English and were way more interestedin taking selfies than listening to the guide. So I mostly hovered, waited, and made sure people didn’t wander off and missed most of what the guide had to say.
I loved these buildings.
We visited a beautiful old building that looked like a church but was actually a former children’s hospital.
These rooms were tiny.
Believe it or not, I am not including all of the pictures of buildings that I took.
It was Sunday. In Germany, Sundays are considered a day for families so most businesses are closed. But not this one! They sold marzipan (which Lubeck is apparently famous for) and pastries.
Then the guide was leading us down a charming street,
when we came to a very boring looking door way.
I followed the group in and there was this very charming little square
Finally it was time for lunch:
After lunch we visited another church,
And walked back out through the city toward the bus
I saw some mannequins hanging above the piece park:
I thought, well, this IS the Netherlands… and then I remembered we were in Germany.
I don’t know what this display was trying to communicate, but I really loved walking around the rest of the town.