Nina's Blog - Thursday 9th October 2025

Thursday 9th October 2025, 12:13

After a pleasant walk to the centre I found the café I was heading for. It's called Onoma, I found it on Google maps and the reviews were encouraging. It's a backstreet café of the kind I like, down to earth, laid back, artisan without being self important.

And the coffee is good. The barista asked what degree of roast I wanted and I took a risk and asked for dark. It was good, strongly flavoured but not burnt. When it arrived at my table it came on a wooden platter with a card under the cup giving the name of the coffee. According to Google Translate it means southern fisherman. Odd that; I've noted several things here with the word süd in them. But this is almost as far north as you can get and still be in Germany so I suppose it might be a hangover from the time when it was Danish.



The WiFi is fast and the access point name and password are prominently displayed on the front door so you don't need to ask for it or search for some half hidden notice.

Thursday 9th October 2025, 20:35

Finally got around to unloading my camera and mobile and tagging my pictures.

On the way to the ton centre I took a very slight detour and walked along Valentinerallee which gives a good impression of being deep in the woods despite being very close to the railway line on one side and a busy road into Flensburg on the other.


Flensburg is another town, like Cheltenham, that seems to have the railway station in an illogical place. It's about two kilometres from the harbour to the station which seems very odd. But there is what looks like a disused single track line that runs along the western side of the harbour.


And of course there is graffiti on the bridge over the railway. In English too which reminds me that I noticed that the don't drink and drive signs on the autobahn in northern Germany are all in English: "Don't drink and drive" and also "Don't drive high".

It looks like the railway was built on the edge of the town because the architecture suddenly changes from modern styles to more traditional styles:

Thursday 9th October 2025, 20:59

From the bridge to the main shopping street which seems to be called Holm is just a few minutes. It has quite a different character compared to Elmshorn, Flensburg is a bigger town but also it is a border town and you can see the connection with Denmark everywhere, most informational signage is bilingual in German and Danish, and there are Scandinavian shops. This one with delightfully whimsical decor


A few metres along the street is a sculpture of a sea creature, a modernist mermaid.


There is apparently enough Art Nouveau in the town to warrant a trail, perhaps I'll take a closer look tomorrow


And there is another Woolworth. I glanced inside and I think it must have been part of the Woolworth's chain originally.

Outside a toy shop is this delightful hippy bus

Thursday 9th October 2025, 21:38

In the harbour there are various excursion boats. The whole place was rather quiet so I presume that most of the commercial activity happens at the seaward end



And of course there are gulls. But not many and they were quiet and well behaved not at all like gulls in Cornwall that carry off chips, pasties and the occasional camera.

On the far side of the harbour were pleasure craft

Also on that side but further toward the sea is an industrial part of the harbour

Looking back toward the direction I came from I saw another reminder of the closeness of Denmark, a cargo bike

Thursday 9th October 2025, 21:24

I saw several things like this as I walked around


Google Lens translates it as:

All the ones I saw seem to some variety or combination of hopscotch, tag, or Twister.

Friday 10th October 2025, 09:23

Did you think I had forgotten to take a selfie yesterday? I just forgot to post it.

Here I am on Valentinerallee just a few metres from Flensburg station.

Thursday 9th October 2025, 21:30

After the Walrus I headed for the harbour. On the way I encountered some street art and graffiti

I presume that this was the Hindenburg because the skyline behind the airship looks a lot more like New York than it looks like Flensburg. I don't know much about the airship, i their a connection between it and the town?

And then the graffiti

It doesn't have any buses that you can take?