Nick & I recently performed in Hamburg for the second time, but on this visit we decided to stay in a rural area. And what a treat: we got to experience the busy city and beautiful rural life all in one trip!

[This blog was originally posted to MarinaV.com January 2018.
Please forgive any possible re-posting glitches.
Also, very sorry we can’t move your lovely comments!
Original post can be found at: https://www.marinav.com/food-travel ]

OVERVIEW & LINKS:

We stayed at Studtmanns Gasthof in Egestorf (beautiful rural hotel in Lower Saxony run by a family, our room overlooked a pasture with horses)
We had afternoon tea at Teestube Undeloh (a beautiful fairytale-like teahouse with delicious desserts in a rural setting)

THE HOTEL

Last time when we played in Hamburg we stayed in the city. It was fine but a bit noisy and parking was hard. This time around we decided to stay 25 minutes South of Hamburg at a small family-run rural hotel called Studtmanns Gasthof, in a town called Egestorf (population 2,500).

We watched horses from our balcony, got to sleep in to the sound of rain, and had a filling country breakfast (included) before we left. Extra thanks to Sylke for being such a wonderful host. Danke, Sylke!

View from our room balcony:

Typical German bathroom has a heated drying rack for towels:
Our breakfast room:
Please take notice of the funny squirrel on the table:

TEA HOUSE

Just a few miles away from our hotel I found (thanks, Googlemaps!) a beautiful tea house with excellent reviews. We didn’t have lunch so decided to have desserts and tea instead. Wow, what a special place it was.

That’s it! Have you been to Egestorf? Tell me about your experiences!
I’d love to hear!

To read about our time in Hamburg:
https://singertravelista.com/2018/06/26/hamburg-germany/

Thank you for reading!

Marina 🙂

A FEW NOTES:

1) I carefully research restaurants, places to stay, activities, historical sites, etc, taking into account reviews on several platforms as well as friend suggestions. But, I often just stumble onto places randomly. It is the beauty of traveling!

2) While I see/do a lot more than I post, I choose to post only about my favorite experiences, unless something is so awful it deserves to be called out (which is rarely the case).

3) One of my favorite and most useful tools while traveling is GoogleMaps. I follow many travel blogs and each time I see something I’d love to visit/experience, I mark it on GoogleMaps as “want to go”. It’s in green color and it’s very helpful when planning a trip.

4) Speaking of GoogleMaps. As always while I’m traveling, if I see something I like – I just walk over and check it out. If I ever get lost, then the good ol’ GoogleMaps is my best friend! Asking the locals is part of the fun: being in a tourist/childlike-state of ignorance. Just be nice and cute and the locals will guide you. It is awesome.

5) As much as I rely on Google reviews, their customer ratings don’t always reflect the true nature of a business/hotel/restaurant. Many people who take the time to review are upset and they’re letting the world know. One of the many reasons I started leaving reviews was the fact that some of my favorite places had (and only a handful of) negative reviews. I’d go to their Google or Yelp or TripAdvisor page and leave a 5 star review because I thought they deserved to have better ratings. So I take ratings & reviews with a grain of salt but do count on them as well. A little of both 🙂

File in:

Beautiful German towns, boutique hotels, travel tips, rural Lower Saxony