East Frisia, Day 5 & 6: Welcome to Dornumersiel, Ludovica!

Ludovica is a photographer from Italy who contacted us earlier this year.

She told us she had been “creating a photographic reportage project with the intention of demonstrating how technology, and specifically love dolls, are helping others not only with their state of mind, but also to find a sincere form of companionship.”

The intention would be to take intimate, true and natural photos with the purpose of photographic narration. She said she would be very pleased to travel around Europe to meet and photograph my husband and myself.

To be honest, we weren’t so sure about it at first. Definitely, we wouldn’t want to do this at our home. But we did suggest that she might visit us in East Frisia during our holiday.

Over the next few months, we kind of lost contact and the project had pretty much slipped our minds when Ludovica got back to us only 10 days before our departure to East Frisia. We agreed that she would arrive on Wednesday and travel back on Saturday with the same train we would be on.

Travel arrangements were made and, despite high season, we found a place for Ludovica to stay in that very village, Dornumersiel, where we would be staying. Miraculously, a nice little pension named “An der Reling”, where Harry had stayed a few times some years back, had a vacancy for her.

It must have been quite a trip for her all the way from Milano. Upon landing at Bremen Airport, she took a tram to Central Station where she hopped on a train to Norddeich Mole and finally caught the last bus to Dornumersiel.

Knowing how adventurous traveling in East Frisia can be, Harry was quite nervous about the bus Ludovica would have to catch in Norddeich. Had she missed it, taking a taxi would have been her only option.

Unlike Harry, though, Ludovica seemed quite cool about everything and in the end, she arrived safely late afternoon at the Dornumersiel bus stop where Harry and I welcomed her.

We accompanied her to her pension to check her in before heading for a nice restaurant to have dinner.

Ludovica is a vegan so we thought we might find it difficult to find a suitable place in our tiny fishing village. But we did find a nice place at the “old harbour”, a restaurant named “Tulipano”, where we god some pasta for Ludovica and a pizza for Harry.

Not counting Burger King, this was actually the first time I got to go to a restaurant. And it was quite funny as Harry first asked the waitress for permission to take me there. It quite seemed like I was the first doll to ever be a guest at that place.

All three of us are fluent in English, so, without a language barrier, we really hit it off great. Usually, it takes Harry quite a bit to get comfortable with new people but Ludovica, being the lovely and amicable person that she is, made it easy for him.

Originally, we had planned to take a stroll to the harbour after dinner but it had already gotten dark so we decided to call it a day and meet again the next morning at the bus stop to go some place.

Unfortunately, though, Harry did not feel well at all the next morning. This also had to do with his disability and a certain form of treatment he regularly has to undergo. Usually, that treatment goes well but, of course, not so this time. So, we had to stay in our apartment. What a bad, bad timing…

Harry was miserable and felt like he was letting Ludovica down after traveling all the way from Italy. She was awesome, though. She didn’t blame Harry at all and took the opportunity to explore the village on her own.

Still, we were really glad when Harry felt better in the afternoon so that we did get to meet for an extensive stroll in the village. Expectedly, we met some sheep even though Ludovica is more fond of cows.

Ludovica finally got to shoot some nice pictures of Harry and me which, of course, we will not be able to share here. Instead, please enjoy a small selection of snapshots below which Harry did.

It was a really nice afternoon after all. For the next morning, we agreed we would meet at the bus stop to take a trip to Greetsiel. And this time, it would work out.