Tom`s travels: Friedrichskoog, Meldorf & Wilster (01/04/2021)

On another day trip from Hamburg, this time with my girlfriend Ania, we decided to visit a few places on the western coast of Schleswig-Holstein. Our first stop was the small village of Friedrichskoog, right by the North Sea on a peninsula created by dykes during the 19th and 20th centuries. The place is known for holding since 1985 the Seehundstation Friedrichskoog, a seal center that provides rehabilitation and research on native marine mammals, specifically that of gray and harbor seals. The center can also be visited by tourists, in order for it to get some funding as well, but unlike a zoo, or animal park, the seals here are just temporarily hosted and will then be re-released into the wild when ready. After paying for the entry ticket it was fun to see the cute seals enjoying their time in the water and playing with each other and my chance to see these native mammals up close. I had previously thought of heading out to the coast or surrounding islands to see them in their natural habitat however, it is not that easy to find them and if so get that close, so this clearly was the best option. After the visit to the center, we then decided to have a walk around the village, climbing on top of the dykes and admiring the endless panorama of the Wadden Sea mudflats in the distance. Then back to the village where we then took a bus which brought us to the next stop, the town of Meldorf. Once there, we walked through its small yet nice old town with some interesting burgher houses. We then reached the main attraction, the Meldorfer Dom, a 13th-century Gothic church, and one of the oldest on the North Sea coast of Germany. The exterior was reconstructed in a neo-gothic style after the building suffered a fire in 1866, however, the interior still dates to that 13th-century original construction. In fact, the central dome features a beautiful cycle of frescoes from the 13th century showing the wealth and power of the Dithmarschen peasant republic, a kind of governing body of the region that lasted during the middle ages and though formally under noble jurisdiction never formally had to answer to any lords or dukes until the 1600s. The interior also features a bronze baptismal font from the beginning of the 14th century, an altar from 1520, and a wooden chancel screen from 1603. After the visit to the church, we then walked in the direction of the train station from where we took the next ride into the town of Wilster, our final stop for the day. Here, after getting off the train we walked through the nice small old town reaching the central main church of St Bartholomew. This large baroque church built between 1775 and 1781, with an unusually shaped nave and an octagonal bell tower was unfortunately closed so we just had to see it from the outside. Continuing our walk, we then passed by some nice burgher houses with some occasional timber-framed ones. Particularly interesting was the old town hall, a timber-framed building dating from 1585 and among Schleswig-Holstein's finest preserved Renaissance buildings. Right in front of it stood the Palais Doos, a former upper-class residential building from 1786 that was donated to the city of Wilster in 1829 and later turned into the new town hall. After strolling around town we decided it was time to head back to the train station where we eventually took the next ride into Hamburg.