Cats instead of lions, a unique church organ, and lots of rum!

It was a cold Monday morning in November. I got up at 4 a.m., double checked the weather, sent flight plans, and made myself ready for driving to my flying club at 05:45.

Flemming picked me up, and around 7 a.m. we were opening the gates of my hangar, wearing our head lamps. It was very dark, but clear skies, and the stars were still shining their light on us, coming from millions of light years…

Pre-flight check, quick breakfast, and we were on our way to Flensburg in Germany:

In about an hour we landed, and parked my Aeroprakt by the tower:

A pleasant chat with the air traffic controller, who called a taxi for us, and we were entering the town from the Nordertor, the only remaining town gate from 1595. Inside the gate, there was this funny “coat of arms” of Flensburg:

The real one is exactly the same, but with lions of course, not with cats! The cats are otherwise becoming a kind of symbol of Flensburg, because a street art artist is painting them secretly at night on the buildings of the old town.

One of my favourites, a naughty ginger cat making green graffiti with his paws:

My knitted fingerless mittens matched very nicely the cat-spirit of Flensburg:

After a coffee break (to get some warmth!) we continued through the narrow side streets, admiring the architecture of Flensburg:

On Nordermarkt, we entered the St. Mary’s church – it was incredibly beautiful, with frescos from the 15th century and a richly decorated altar from the 16th century:

The stained glass windows were astonishing, and each one of of them was a piece of art.

Flemming and I made our way to the marina where we enjoyed a stroll in the sunshine with beautiful views:

Window shopping was also fun:

We walked down the Norderstraße, and there were Christmas markets everywhere. On Südermarkt, another beautiful church attracted our attention – the Saint Nikolas church:

One exceptional thing in the St Nikolas church is the double organ, the only one in the world! The instrument was given by the Danish King Christian IV at the beginning of the 17th century:

The church itself was also quite impressive.

We continued to the cosy courtyards of the Rote straße, with its many shops and art galleries, cafes and restaurants:

In one of those courtyards, we discovered a restaurant called Die Weinstube im Krusehof. It looked so nice, and they had flammkuchen! – we decided to have lunch there:

To our surprise, they didn’t have any German type of flammkuchen (with sour cream), but French, Brazilian, Spanish, and other styles. It tasted delicious though, we didn’t complain.

Don’t leave Flensburg without buying their famous Braasch rum! I also bought some dark chocolate pralines with (Jamaican) rum, I simply love them:

We waived goodbye to the Rote straße – we could spend much more money there, if we had the time:

Our taxi driver got us back to the airport, and we took off. A couple of rounds over the town of Flensburg:

And we headed back home. The weather was nice, and we were freezing even more than on our flight to Flensburg:

After watching the sunset from air, we landed in the civil twilight, and quickly began cleaning, re-fuelling, and so on. When one hour later we were finished, it was completely dark again:

It was a very nice day out, and we were happy to spend it in Flensburg.