Mölln

A few km's upstream from Lübeck, the Elbe-Lübeck canal starts with the first of a total of seven locks. The lock keeper will set up a 'convoy', by waiting until a reasonably big groups of boats has collected and then locking them together. As there is a strictly enforced speed limit in the canal (they measure the time you take to get to the next lock), the whole convoy gets to the next lock together. That lock will be open and prepared for the convoy, so there is no wait after the 'entry lock'. Works well! We were lucky to be the last boat into the 'entry lock', without any waiting time at all. This is what the convoy looked like at the entry to lock #2:





Around 2:30 we got to Mölln, our planned overnight stop. A very nice old town, not 'spectacular', like Lübeck but with a well preserved old town centre. As we tend to like small places better than big cities, we actually prefer this laid back place over its famous big brother!





Mölln is also known for its connection to 'Till Eulenspiegel' (Tijl Uilenspiegel for the Dutch followers). He is / was a folkloristic jester from this part of the world who supposedly lived around 1300. Till supposedly died in Mölln. Unfortunately, the 'Blogpress' app that I use to do these post from my iPad has no easy feature to post links (other than me writing the HTML myself), but if you look up Till Eulenspiegel in for instance Wikipedia, you'll learn more.
Of course the town uses the 'Till - link' to its maximum, tonight there is a 'Till play' in the town square, which we won't attend as its all in German.

Here is Till:





Tomorrow, we will do the second half of this canal, to Lauenburg, after which we'll enter the river Elbe and will be directly connected to the North Sea again.