Aaron on Amrum (or: the Art of the Strandkorb)

Today I want to share some of my private travel experiences with you. I am now on a small island with a huge beach called Amrum, one of the North Frisian Islands in the North Sea. It is less popular than its neighbour Sylt, home of the rich and fancy. But while Sylt loses lots of sand to the sea every year, this sand comes to Amrum and gives it one of the biggest and best beaches I have ever seen.

You have to take a ferry which takes one and a half hours from the German coast. That's probably one of the reasons why Amrum is less popular than Sylt which can be easily reached by train and airplane.

I have been coming to this island every year to celebrate my daughter's birthday since she was five. Tomorrow is her seventeenth birthday.

The habit of spending every summer vacation on the same island does not seem to fit our passion for travelling the world, but we do it anyway. I love travelling, but my daughter is even more extreme: she has been on every continent except Australia despite her young age.

A German speciality is the "Strandkorb", literally a "Beach Basket". I think Germany is the only place in the world with "Strandkörbe", am I right? It is quite practical to store your stuff and sit in the shade, though.

Of course there are special motor vehicles to move "Strandkörbe" to and from the beach. That's Germany!

Another German beach speciality is the "Strandburg" or "Beach Castle". People used to build big walls around their "Strandkorb" to mark their territory and protect their privacy. But this habit has somehow gone out of fashion. Maybe it is considered to be too "spießig" (= narrow minded). People now build smaller, more beautiful beach castles like this one.

Amrum is part of a region in Germany called Nordfriesland ("North Frisia") which is bilingual. The second language here is Frisian, which is closer to Dutch than to German. Amrum in Frisian is called "Öömram" and the motto on the flag is "Lewer duad üüs slaw" which means "Better dead than slave".

I like North Frisia!