I did it! Our summer kick-off trip went pretty amazingly, despite a rough start. After dreaming about and planning what we would do and reading about other people’s experiences in Hamburg and Lübeck from long ago, I managed to pull off my most ambitious trip yet solo with my two boys. Wow!
I wrote a diary throughout the seven-night journey, which I will put here as more context for how it feels as a mum alone with her two (young) kids. I have to say, though, I wasn’t that nervous about managing my kids alone for 7 nights, although this was the first time I’ve ever been their sole carer for quite so long (my record before this was 4 nights).
No, the stress here came from getting frickin’ norovirus three days before our trip! During peak summer season which made me very unhappy at the idea of rebooking anything with low availability and expensive prices. Also due to stubbornness. Probably mostly stubbornness. Why!? Why!? Since having kids, every time I book a trip I’m terrified that we’ll have to cancel because we get sick, which clearly happens a lot with young children in the house.
And lo and behold, it happened. I felt like I’d been hit by a bus and truly thought it was the flu and that I’d be out for weeks. Remarkably, by the next day, I was weak but much, much better. Unfortunately (and not so amazingly), my baby also got it at the eleventh hour — at 5pm the night before, he was suddenly sobbing and then throwing up everywhere. Ugh!
After that little episode he was just… better. And absolutely fine the next morning, although I went to bed wholly expecting we’d have to cancel when my other son got it. Luckily he didn’t! And hence, we were able to set off on our six hour train journey to Hamburg.
Day 1: In which we arrive in Hamburg and wander through the pouring rain with a massive suitcase and a toddler in a baby carrier
The train ride went perfectly. We had our own compartments for both legs (3 hours and then 2 hours). A family shared it with us for the first half, and we were all alone the second half. The baby napped. I relaxed. It really wasn’t too bad despite lugging a huge suitcase around and my relative exhaustion from being sick.
I love ICE trains in Germany.
Phew, as I look out the window of my train carriage now, I’m thinking back to the anxiety I felt 12 hours ago, not even knowing if we were going to be on this train today! I had to remember the book Writing Away and its tenet that traveling in peace and according to plan isn’t ever going to make the most interesting travel writing: it helped me keep mindful and not panic as I got sick, then REALLY sick, then better and calmed, then M suddenly got REALLY sick, and then… we had to wait… to see if M got better and if then E stayed healthy! What a rollercoaster ride! I wasn’t even that panicked and probably it was also because I was in a daze from the shakes and shivers this thing caused me. What WAS that!? Who knows.
Anyway now I’m fairly weak, but sitting back in these comfy seats in a private train compartment — my kids occupying themselves pretty well — more than halfway through this six hour journey and I can say… so far… that I’m glad we’re still doing this. The peace of having set out on something important to me again, on doing it even though it’s hard, outweighs the anxiety and the stress and the physical toll of these trips. 43 days of travel, here we come.
I love watching the land change minutely from the Netherlands to Germany: once you cross that border, the hills emerge. The style of housing changes. And once we got past Osnabrück, I remembered that now we are going through land I’ve never seen in my whole life. So I can simply sit and watch the wind turbines float past. Well, until the manickness of an unnapped toddler or a 5-year-old who’s watched too much TV comes back for my attention. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t feel much like podcasts or TV or books today because I wouldn’t get much of a chance!
Now, our first Hamburg hotel was probably my weakest planning point of the entire journey. Hotels were relatively expensive that weekend, so I ended up booking the INNSiDE by Melia Hamburg Hafen which got good reviews, was a decent price, seemed kid-friendly but the catch was it was a 17 minute walk from the train station. Usually I could do this no problem but I had a huge suitcase, and I was a bit sick, and of course also had a toddler in the carrier.
So I thought we’d take the bus. Only a few stops. Well it turns out the expensive prices that weekend were because of an event going on in the city — and I think that’s what messed up our bus too. It came in one direction but not the other. After getting on the wrong bus, we trekked back and tried to make our way by walking… except it started pouring rain. Even with an umbrella, I wouldn’t have been able to manage it with our luggage. So we waited for a bus that didn’t come, then dashed through the rain as much as we could. The plus was I found some great casual Thai food in an Asian supermarket. I loved it so much we came back two days later!
It ended up taking two hours to get to our hotel instead of 5 minutes. The bus never worked and the metro was a long walk away. If it hadn’t been raining, it would’ve been ok, but alas. As for the neighbourhood, there’s really nothing much in the Hafen area, as I had learned via my history of Hamburg — a result of World War 2’s long impact.
So all in all: stick to my mantra of staying near the main train station, even if buses seem easy!
What I should have done, which I realised when we went to Altona the next day, was find a hotel around there. That area was absolutely lovely, and, significantly, the Hamburg train from Amsterdam actually terminates there. I hadn’t even considered this. It would have been perfect!
Day 2: A slow day at a fish market, playground, pizza overlooking the port and emigration museum
The next day, I flagged early. This was the worst day in terms of my recovery from my illness. Yet it was still probably one of my favourite days of the trip. We got up and headed to the Altona fish market via bus, which closes at 9am. Not hard with two young kids. I felt so much better than the day before only having a toddler to carry around! He had also slept amazingly — my first time ever experiencing him doing a 6+ hour sleep on holiday.
We had muffins and coffee / babyccinos at the market and wandered into the hall (I’m assuming the fish is sold there?). What we did find was a throng of drunk older Germans swaying and belting out europop tunes to live music. It was awesome! Such an atmosphere! Only later on did it occur to me that many of those market-goers had probably been out all night long.
Afterwards, we had eggs at The Special Connection but I wasn’t actually that hungry by then. The kids went a bit crazy and there was an incident in which my toddler spilled the sugar all over the communal table…
I was really starting to feel exhausted and it was only 9:30am! I had a bit of a conundrum about what to do. I almost wanted to go back to the hotel to rest, but it was so early. My five year old adamantly complained that he just wanted to watch TV all day (perils of letting a kid watch TV for five hours straight on the train).
I ended up slowly (keyword: slowly) making our way to the Altonaer Museum, which I’d heard had a good kids area. I wanted to find out more about this town which actually used to be part of Denmark. But we never made it there. We got distracted by a lovely sunny play park where I was able to have a rest.
This was a good of example of being able to stop and say, no, we don’t always need to follow through on what we had planned to do. I needed to take it more slowly, and the kids were happy to spend the time here whilst we waited for my planned lunch place to open.
Lunch was one of the places I was really looking forward to, the Sonnedeck St. Pauli. I picked this over StrandPauli (next door) as it accepts the NeoTaste card, which would have gotten us 2for1 burgers (I ended up going for pizza). As expected, the food was meh but the vibe so lovely! There is a kids play corner with sand and lots of toys, and the view of the ships (with the cargo you could see along the docks) is so cool. Hamburg in a nutshell.
We then walked back along the river, the kids stopping to play with all the love-padlocks on the bridge, another activity they loved. Any chance I get to let them run wild (albeit usually very slowly inching along) in a pedestrian zone is appreciated.
We really could have done anything after this. Seeing as I was going to stay in central Hamburg at the end of our trip, I opted not to do any sightseeing in the centre.
Instead, we hopped on the metro and headed to the BallinStadt Emigrant Museum. I had read about it when learning about how Hamburg used to house one of the leading cruise liners. Here was the point I’d hoped the baby would nap, but sadly he didn’t. Which means this was the first day ever he went without any naps at all…
It went better than expected. It was manageable with the kids, lots of running around for them to do, and interesting to see all the stories about emigrants from various eras. A plus was the kids section at the end.
And then, I met up with my friend! She had come over for one night to see us. We had a nice long natter in the museum cafe before heading back to the hotel for another long gossip whilst the kids ran around the fairly quiet hotel restaurant for hours. It was a gentle, slow way to end the day, seeing as how I had been so exhausted.
Day 2, success. From my diary:
If I compare the frenetic anxiety of getting to the hotel last night to the chill up-and-down of now — I’m in heaven! Sitting watching the boats go by and the kids throw sand down a ledge (allegedly over a bin), Sonnendeck St Pauli has terrible food but an atmosphere to die for. One a mum sittervising can also savour!
I’m glad we made it to the fish market. That moment of walking into the hall with the middle-aged German pair bawling out a German version of Eurovision and the drunken old people cheering and dancing at 8:30am? And M clapping excitedly along? Worth it. I also found a shirt that immediately brought me joy and bought it in a snap decision — something I don’t usually do but when you know you know.
We had one moment where I was rifling through all the stuff I have to carry, E was simultaneously helping and very much complaining whilst holding coffee for me, and then it spilled all over the place. I felt awful and so did he! It was like the coffee dampened all over both our optimistic spirits too. I really had to consciously take a breath, reset and apologise to E for snapping. We got our mojo back.
I’m also wavering between contentment and exhaustion / post-sickness and in a bit of a daze because of it. So even though we’re going to a lot of places today, I’m trying to take it slow by taking public transport, deep breaths and one step at a time.
The weather is a similar scenario – chilly wind-swept hair one moment, sun-kissed shoulders the next.
Next up — we’ll slowly make our way over to the emigration museum, and hopefully my friend will join.
Day 3: In which a toddler is very happy on floor 1 and tantrums from floors 2-9 of the International Maritime Museum Hamburg
Please listen carefully: do not, I repeat, do not, start at the first floor if you go to the International Maritime Museum Hamburg with young kids. You will experience extreme stress getting them to leave the play area! I think my youngest was also just exhausted, because he never calmed down again after that and just screamed and screamed. I’d unfortunately popped our baby carrier in the lockers and ended up having to carry him and rush through most of these floors! He’s usually so curious and eager to toddle around when we are in spaces like this. So I repeat: ignore what the museum guides say. Make sure you start with floor 9 and head slowly down so you can have a leisurely end to the visit! And don’t try to see it all. It’s too much. But quite a nicely done museum.
Now the hard part. After much complaining from my eldest, we went back to the Thai place (he ended up enjoying the chicken dumplings foisted on him), and walked back to our hotel for our bag. The baby fell asleep almost right away and slept until we got on the train to Lübeck — the next leg of our journey! Not how I’d envisioned it, but I was discovering on this trip that my nearly-2-year-old is doing very well with a flexible schedule. He’s much easier to handle in general even compared to our trip two months ago (despite this day’s tantrum). The perks of traveling from a young age: you get to see how their travel style develops!
We had for dinner pizza which would have been really nice (they gave colouring with the kids menus) except the service was not good. It took too long to be served, the kids got antsy.
That night we had an awesome shopping spree at the dm drugstore, where I let the kids fill our basket with lots and lots of snacks. I love the baby snacks in Germany! Also, the fitness supplements / protein bars section is so good. The other thing that’s super handy is that most of these drugstores have baby changing tables with free diapers and wipes! I often nipped in to change my baby in the middle of the day, easier than having to do it on the floor in our hotel room.
I kept going back to these drugstores (also to Rossmann, which I actually preferred) and our suitcase was so full of food by the end of the trip that we hit the weight limit exactly. Whoops!
Written the day after:
It certainly felt like an accomplishment to be done with that hotel! Innside Melia was a lovely hotel, it had everything we needed, but I would not, not, not ever recommend it for people with kids. It’s impossible to get taxis because they need car seats. The bus was NOT convenient; we never even managed to take it from our hotel front. I think the stop moved. The one we did take was a 15min walk away, fine if you’re alone but with babies and luggage? Never mind the luggage, I walked with that 25min from and to the train station in the rain each time. An effort! I earned that pad Thai we had twice…
…After a laborious transfer to Lübeck, we settled into our hotel and headed for pizza (E’s desperate request after not getting it for lunch). I managed to relax with wine and a margarita pizza while they only made a little mayhem. The service was bleh but the wine made up for it! And then we headed to one of my favourite parts of a German trip – a trip to dm.
This drugstore has everything, as most Netherlanders know! I let E go wild with the snacks. And I would’ve gone wilder with my snacks too but it was getting late. I’ll settle for my creatine gummies for now.
Back to today: we ended up at a little vegetarian Turkish joint for lunch. €10 for two gozleme and he threw in a free potato dumpling thing too for the baby. I don’t often go to these kinds of eateries, but casual places are definitely the way to go when traveling alone with two kids in a strange country. Even if he couldn’t understand my English and we had to communicate in a weird him-German me-Dutch variant! The bus drivers also don’t understand us— so far they haven’t let me pay for a ticket yet… let’s see…
Day 4: A day with kids in Lübeck, the marzipan capital of the world
Yessss. One of the main reasons I’d booked this trip: to gorge ourselves on marzipan. I resolved today to not overdo it with the walking. I was intent on getting a day bus pass. It turns out bus drivers just don’t understand me and kept waving me on for free. I think they may have changed their payment system recently? So if you plan on using the buses, try to establish how to buy your tickets. The hotel receptionist didn’t know either.
We stayed at the H+ Hotel Lübeck which was absolutely perfect for the price we paid. The building is connected to the train station; and the room was surprisingly modern. The kids had a lot of space to run around too.
First order of the day: marzipan. We took the bus to the Niederegger Marzipan Museum, which turned out to be only one room on the third floor of their flagship shop. It opened at 9am which is always convenient for young kids. Then we had marzipan hot chocolate (me) and chocolate ice cream (my son) and indulged!
I found out later that there were actually two other brands of marzipan I could have tried in the city. One day!
We headed to the Günter Grass House next, dedicated to the Nobel Prize winning author / artist. It’s also connected to the Willy Brandt House. My favourite part of the day. The guides were so kind and eager to share the museum with the kids, and the garden was lovely.
The thing with the journal is that I’ll naturally be writing it in times of repose which are a great contrast to my typical trip pace with the kids. A lot of it is me snapping, hitting breaking point, exhausted or frenetically trying to figure out what to do next. Or doggedly plodding through the day and the town we’re in. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth it, on the contrary it’s often this energy that is part of the recipe for a fulfilling time for me — we’re working so hard for those peaceful moments, after all, we’ve come so far to get here.
There are two moments that remind me of that today: the first is arriving at Niederegger Cafe / Museum / Shop extraordinaire after a quick bus stop but what has really been days of travel to get here, months if you think about that moment I first saw ‘Lubeck’ on their chocolate bar in February. It’s a moment of peace and joy that all that led to! Sipping marzipan hot chocolate by the window overlooking a historic building that has something to do with marzipan, I’m not quite sure what. And then it went back to the chaos again as we went crazy in the shop below, M maniacally collecting the baskets and grabbing at things till I had to put him back in the baby carrier. And €50 worth of marzipan goods? Yes please, and the main thing that stopped me was mainly the weight of it all… we also went back later to grab some cakes for the hotel room. Yum!
Moment number two that flashed before me was when they played in the boat at the Gunter Grass House play area. What a dream of a museum, lovely for adults and enchanting for kids! And the garden was so inviting – also with lots of green grassy space – and the staff were all very kind. I didn’t know much about him (or Willy Brandt, in the museum next door), but they’re both Nobel Prize winners and the latter was very much devoted to peace. Which I found there.
We are now resting while M naps, the first time I’ve had a chance to slow down mid-day since we began traveling. A treat for sure, right along with that marzipan.
The thing this made me all consider is that yes, when I write I am in a peaceful mode: it is a marked difference from many other parts of my traveling day. After all, how can I write during those crazy moments? I can mark them in my mind, aim for mindfulness around them, which perhaps can help them to create their own energy and memories which can be meaningful in their own way. And if I’m going to do a travel journal, eventually I need to write about those times, too, to actually include the majority of what we are doing and seeing and experiencing.
After the baby’s blessedly long nap in the hotel room, we headed to the old gates of the town, which you can climb up. My son really wanted to scale those windy steps and had fun doing so (me too, despite the toddler in the carrier). Afterwards, we walked along the river (a lovely walk) slowly towards the Museum of Nature and Environment.
Unfortunately the museum’s Google maps times were incorrect: they closed only 15min after we got there, at 5pm. This wasn’t too bad, though, because we were quite tired and zooming through it suited us just fine. My son is obsessed with fossils and the prehistoric era at the moment and was really pleased.
Via the Lübeck tourism site, I had found out that this summer kids go free to museums in this region, also with a fun little stamp rally. Even though we couldn’t enter the sweepstakes (with no German address), my son really enjoyed this, reminiscent of the stamp rallies common during our Japan trip.
Day 5: A day by the Baltic Sea in Travemünde
The next day we dashed out the hotel in time to get an early train for the seaside in Travemünde, only 20min away.
I wasn’t particularly trying to have an early day, but we had finished breakfast and didn’t have much else to do. Also throughout this trip there was the anxiety over my toddler’s naps: I hadn’t been able to reliably plan any carrier naps, although when I saw that he actually did pretty well the one day he had no nap at all, I did relax. In the end, it’s really mainly about me; do I want that (precious) 2.5hr break in the middle of a busy day? It’s a trade-off.
Today it became clear that we were opting for seaside over nap as we got there and saw how relaxed and nice it was by the Baltic Sea! My diary entry is the best encapsulation of this day:
Yesterday was Day 5: A day by the seaside in Travemünde and it was a ramble through the brisk morning air followed by basking in some sunlight. What a wonderful day! We’ve hit our stride with our travel, I know how to finagle them out the hotel in time to make 8:03am trains, baby carrier and snacks and all (in all very little is what I bring). I had been nervous beforehand about M’s naps but it really doesn’t matter in the end.
The important part is my stamina. If I’m exhausted, that’s when no-naps are a danger zone. But we’ve only had that once. And I feel back up to health again, and seeing something new every day — feeling something new each day — has left me buzzing and alive and very satisfied. It’s that fulfilling feeling I get of knowing I’m doing the most and seeing the most while also taking deep breaths, savouring where we are, not trying TOO hard and loving seeing my boys experience all these new places right along with me.
We had arrived at Travemünde very early — almost no one around — and they ran onto that beach like it was paradise, although of course it was pretty chilly on the Baltic Sea at 8:30am. We basically just played all day (well, I sat there and soaked up the atmosphere, aka sittervising at its finest). My memory of yesterday is being seated on a plank watching my son run around the wooden pirate ship in the sand, the toddler also racing around excitedly, whilst I ate the best protein bar I’ve ever tasted, cookie dough flavour from Rossmann. (It was good enough that I went again today to stock up.) The sun peaked through every now and then but for the most part it was pretty chilly.
We went off in search of ice cream along the promenade. We didn’t find it until after lunch (three types of fish from a very German fish place, the ‘Neptune platter’), but that slow amble along the promenade as the sun was getting warmer and warmer was lovely. Think lots of old Germans cycling slowly past, the beach starting to getting a little busier, kids running around. It was only a Wednesday so never got heaving but you could see what it would be like on a busy weekend summer day. The huge ferry boats heading into the river, the crazy people swimming in the (what I assume was) cold water.
At lunch, I was reminded of how much easier it would be to learn German compared to Dutch. So many people absolutely refuse to try to understand you! I keep defaulting to Dutch to get my point across but I have only a vague idea of their reply. At one point they gave us hot cocoa instead of milk and were incensed when I refused to take it. Oh well.
After lunch, we ended up at playground #2 (via some ice cream). The sun was fully out, the kids played well, and my goal was basically to get baby exhausted enough that he’d fall right asleep the baby carrier, which he did. We got back to the hotel by 3pm and had a rest before heading out for Italian food from an authentic supermarket nearby! It was really nice to end our stay in Lübeck with some wine, pasta and pizza. A foretaste of our Italy trip next month!
Day 6: Back to Hamburg to relax
Back to day 6, the pace is decidedly slower. I feel like I’ve ‘done’ this trip now and by switching to a nice hotel I always knew this last day would be for relaxing. We got to the Conrad Hamburg quite early, around 10am, and I lapped up all the amenities, executive lounge and lunch credit in a posh restaurant included. We did a cursory tour of the old town — seeing the Town Hall and St Peter’s church, as well as the inner lake. Our only selfie!
Now M is napping, and I don’t even really feel like I need these quiet hours; I would have been much more frantic before that we got the room so late, that he didn’t go down until after 2, but it doesn’t really matter now, we are just having a lazy day, I’ll take them to the pool and we’ll enjoy this nice room. It’s fun when you settle into your travel groove (and also get to stay at nice hotels to boot).
Can I give Conrad Hamburg an A+ here please. The room they gave us, even without the upgrade American Express Platinum members often receive, was wonderful, with teddies and soaps for my kids and lots of space. My son could sit in the bathroom at a little table and watch his iPad whilst the baby napped. Also key with Amex Platinum Fine Hotels & Resorts is the ability to check in early and check out at 4pm, enabling us to get not one but two crib naps in. The staff generally tried hard although there was some clumsiness — they never came with the pillow service, they dialled my room when I’d said we’d be napping (!!), and they were uncommunicative during checkin. However. For the most part it was a retreat from Hamburg. And knowing when to curtail your expectations is the key with luxury hotels. There are times I expect them to get things 100% perfect, but this was not one of those times; I was simply looking for a chance to relax (and use my $300 hotel credit) at the end of a long trip.
I definitely recommend getting an executive club room so you have access to the food in the lounge. No need to buy dinner! And the kids loved the pool.
Day 7: A slow end to Hamburg
From my diary entry which I wrote the day after, in Manchester:
Yesterday was our last bits of sightseeing. We had a satisfying, luxurious, slow breakfast at the Conrad, I did some last bits of packing and we headed out to see the Tax and Customs Museum, walking along the harbour / warehouse-y part of Hamburg. A small, calm museum. Then we went up up up the St Nikolai Church and it felt like we were ending where we began (but from higher up): we could see all the cranes and containers in the distance by St Pauli, where we’d gone that first Sunday at the fish market, when I was still exhausted and recovering from norovirus and forging my way through trepidation to do this trip I’d planned for two months!
The kids are old enough now that it doesn’t really feel as exhausting as all that. Actually, I was thinking how nice this morning that I’m pretty relaxed and rested compared to other trips. That doesn’t take away from the absolute irritation and stress that comes at points along the way — usually dealing with my stubborn, over-excited or over-tired 5-year-old, sometimes the nearly 2-year-old — but still, I can do trips like this and it’s wonderful.
I would like to see more parts of Hamburg that are less central; I really enjoyed Altona. But who knows when or if we’ll ever be back. I wasn’t smitten with the city overall, mostly satisfied and well-studied in regards to it.
Well, maybe another part of Germany next — Munich, maybe?
Two weeks later, yes, I booked a 7-hour train ride to Munich for October.
Day 8: Egg naan rolls two times over
From my diary:
I’m fairly amazed that we managed this travel plan almost without any hitches. Getting into and out of Hamburg, granted, seems to be incredibly stressful, but the rest of it? It worked! We got to Manchester last night, went straight to sleep, and checked out at 8am to wander around a sleepy central Manchester, grab a matcha latte, sit in a square with a homeless man across the way whilst the kids chased pigeons and played in the dirt. And the egg naan rolls! The egg naan rolls! I ordered one to go, too, which I proudly enjoyed on the train, which is where I am now, towards the end of a 2.5 hour train ride to Scarborough where we can finally put this travel itinerary to rest.
It’s been exhausting but worth it and I feel fulfilled. We went to a lovely free museum this morning, the People’s History Museum, and I ambled through that museum at such a slow, calm, mindful pace, content in knowing that L was almost there (his flight arrived just as we were heading in), the kids played happily and all-in-all, it was a peaceful way to end our trip. When L came and I was able to symbolically and literally hand over that huge suitcase… OMG… I did it. I almost don’t know what to do with myself, but I do feel calm, and mindful and contented. Although of course the kids still go wild: E is so excited to see his dad again, and the baby is understandably exhausted, screaming and flailing around trying to grab at my matcha latte #2. It turns out Manchester is pretty hip these days. A mix of fun new cafes and cool chains I know from London. Thanks Manchester, you were chill.
