The choice of holidays on a budget was limited. I hadn't really expected to find anything on the Adriatic when I was looking through the usual booking sites to plan a holiday with the children. But secretly, I'd hoped that if I searched long enough, I'd eventually stumble upon a lucky find: «Free now!»
Whenever I thought back to my childhood holidays, it was always Spain: my father was a diver. Blue water, caves, sharp rocks and Aleppo pines clinging to the cliffs. The smell of wet neoprene drying in the shade of the diving centres. When I thought of that, I would have loved to have driven straight there with my sons, aged six and nine. But unfortunately, I had been personally insolvent since March 2025.
The arguments against the North Sea were: there was nothing but mud, tonnes of jellyfish, and the town centres looked as if the architect had shot himself afterwards.
«Why don't you go to a campsite?» said my father. I said, «No tent.» Which was true, but only part of the truth. I simply couldn't be bothered to spend my time on a field that was far too hot, by a swimming lake on the verge of turning into a mudflat, where from eleven in the morning blokes called Horst stand by the barbecue, absent-mindedly turning the meat and drinking beer, whilst the Gabis sit in the shade of the awning, laughing like a pile of rubble tumbling down, and say things like: «Aperol is my yoga.»
I definitely didn't want that, so I thought: the North Sea. What were the pros and cons?
Pros and cons of the North Sea
The proximity to the sea was a plus. We were living in northern Germany, so it would probably take about two hours on the Regional Express.
The argument against it was: there was nothing but mud, tonnes of jellyfish, and the city centres looked as if the architect had shot himself afterwards. A prawn sandwich cost eleven euros. I mean: eleven euros for a bit of dead stuff in a roll – have they all gone mad? We'd never have gone there at all if a good friend hadn't phoned me, beaming with joy, and said: «My parents have a flat on Amrum!” Handy, free of charge – we'd just have to pay for the final clean. And she'd be coming along with her daughter too!
Right, I thought, so we just need to agree not to spend money on everything. Money that she had far more freely at her disposal than I did. That sort of thing quickly created pressure. We agreed to live on the bare minimum and without media, and the plan for the summer was sorted.
When, after a journey of several hours, we reached the island, which stretched out in a crescent shape against the brown North Sea as if it had to defend every centimetre against the water, we stood at the ferry's railing, heavily laden with rucksacks, and were greeted by seagulls in the way seagulls greet you: with mechanical head movements, as if there were a mechanism inside them bent on taking your life.
I warned my sons that any food we ate in public would be regarded by the seagulls as their food.
«You mustn't trust these animals,» I said.
«It's all just plastic rubbish anyway!»
As we'd already had to cut back on the cost of the ferry crossing, we didn't take the bus but walked instead. The advantage of this was that we could see practically everything there was to discover along the way. The downside was that you could see absolutely everything along the way. We saw every single postcard shop and souvenir shop, every single soft toy seal wearing a captain's hat with «Moin» written on it, every key ring saying «I love Amrum» and every mug with «My love language is grog!» on it.
My children dragged me into every shop, and I said the phrase «No, we're not buying that now!» a thousand times – until eventually I found myself saying, «It's all just plastic rubbish anyway !»
When my youngest, aged 6, asked about the price of a little lighthouse in one of these shops and was told a price that seemed far too high to him, he said indignantly to the cashier that it was just a bit of plastic rubbish anyway. At least, that's what his dad said. We stared at each other for a while, the cashier and I, playing a game to see who would look away first. When she didn't look away, I said I was terribly sorry about the whole thing.
When I switched on the light in our flat, my gaze fell on the beds, the sofa and the little kitchen in the corner. This would be our home for the next few days. Small, simple and cosy. I drew back the curtains and there, in the window: the Mediterranean's ugly sister.
But okay, I thought, as we put our things down, rushed into our rooms with a flurry of excitement and argued over who would get which bed: it surely wouldn't all be that bad. What sort of things could you do on Amrum, for example, that don't cost any money?
Lasting memories
As I leafed through the leaflets lying around the flat, I thought back to our last holiday in Boltenhagen on the Baltic Sea. We'd got lost in a maze there once – for just five euros – because I thought it would be a piece of cake. In the end, it turned into a proper day out, but one which, I felt, had really brought us all closer together.
For example, I still remembered very clearly how my father and I had once drifted out to sea on an air mattress in Spain and found ourselves in distress. The journey back, the laborious paddling towards the shore, the moments when it wasn't entirely clear whether we'd make it: that had been some real quality time with my father.
Come to think of it: when I thought back to Spain, I didn't think of the lovely restaurants where we used to eat in the evenings, apart from that brilliant place serving baguettes au gratin right by the pool. Often, all I could remember was pasta with sauce, which we'd have when we children came back from the beach utterly exhausted.
Once, my father and I had taken the train to the market in the neighbouring Spanish town of Gambas to fetch two large buckets full of food, which, kept cool with ice, were meant to survive the journey up the hill. Unfortunately, the hill was incredibly steep, and the ice melted, making the load heavier, yet we were still proud and exhausted when we finally reached the top. In my memory, the food has never tasted better.
Perhaps these days, letting things go is a far greater luxury than making them happen.
We rounded up the children and went out to the beach, where we spent the whole week. We couldn't go for a swim straight away , as the sea would rush back in panic every time we arrived. But that didn't matter: once we went to the swimming pool. Once we went on a private mudflat walk, though only a short way from the beach, during which my son cut his foot on a shell. Once we went to look at a whale skeleton, and after a few minutes of marvelling at it, the children said, «Can we go now?»
Plenty of time and nothing to do
Looking back, it was all very lovely. We had no plans and time seemed to stretch on forever, so at some point she simply had some free time and played backgammon. Just to keep things moving. The day began, and the day came to an end. It was only on the day we left that we switched on the telly once, because we had to pack and tidy up.
There weren't even any arguments about money. My girlfriend went along with it all and did without her luxuries. That was lovely and very kind of her, and it was probably the reason why everything went so smoothly. «Why,» she said once, «I've got everything, after all.»
«What on earth is that?» I thought.
Whenever I thought of my childhood, I thought of endless summers. Of the lake, of Sweden, of the huts behind the house that we could hardly bear to leave, even when our parents called out: «Dinner's ready.» I always remembered there being lots of children. Adults, around the campfire. A glass of wine in my hand, and someone playing the guitar and singing along – very badly – to «Wonderwall ».
I remembered how I would sometimes stand there as a little boy at dusk, the forest slowly losing its daylight, and how I could hardly wait to see it again the next day, whilst the campfire was already crackling behind me. Don't go yet, stay a while longer. Don't let it get dark just yet. What is all this?
We want for nothing
«What do you think?» asked my girlfriend, as the children slept behind us like dogs dreaming of the hunt. We were sitting on the steps outside the front door, with a glass of wine. «Do you like it here, even though you've got the North Sea?»
I smiled at her, the last rays of sunshine on my face. Her eyes behind her sunglasses. «Yes,» I said. «Very much so.»
«Why?» she asked.
«Because I might have just understood something.»
«What?» she asked, taking a sip of her wine.
It's funny how I still remember the things we weren't allowed to have back then: mobile phones, games consoles, the telly. Luxury. Expensive toys bought on a whim from the shop.
«My son said just now: ‹We want for nothing,›» I replied. «Perhaps these days, doing without is a far greater luxury than having everything. Do you know what I mean?»
