The dunes of Norderney. Photo (cc) flickr user HaystackPhotography

An island that can be reached only by boat?  The thought alone had images of pirates and buried treasure dancing in my head.  Budget airlines had made “exotic” locations easier to reach, and so, several articles told me, people had been flocking to foreign coasts instead of Germany’s own bit of the North Sea.

But the tide was coming back in, and I wanted to get a look before too many tourists remembered that the German coast is a pretty sweet spot to spend a few relaxing days.  So when a friend invited me to come along to Norderney, I jumped at the chance.

Standing on the platform of a small-town train station, the wind rips through our hair and the ground rumbles as a sleek white ICE train shoots past at several hundred kilometers an hour (they are capable of 300 km/hour), that is, as far as I know, faster than a speeding bullet.  On an ICE you can get from Frankfurt to Paris (600 kilometers!) in under four hours.  They could get you to the moon in 55 days, if they went that far.