Tours in or near Kiel, Germany
 

Anybody have any suggestions for tours or things to see in or near Kiel, Germany?

Kiel itself is not really interesting except for a few historical points (the baroque city hall for example). Everything else has been bombed flat and rebuilt in the 1950 style.

There are nice place around Kiel though - for example Laboe (nice beach, windmills, WW2 submarine, etc.) - an easy ferry trip. Or you can just take a train to Lübeck which is a far more beautiful historical city.

If you are keen on education, close to Schleswig to the North, there is Hedeby or Haithabu in German, an archeological site where one of the biggest Viking settlements used to be about 1250 years ago. A museum tells about the history. You could combine this with a visit to the Gottorf Palace in Schleswig itself which houses artefacts from the region through the centuries.
http://www.schloss-gottorf.de/

Closer to Kiel there is the monument for dead navy soldiers in Laboe, erected originally to commemorate the German navy's fatalities from WW I, now politically correctly a monument for the dead at sea from all nations. The best thing is that it offers vast views from its rooftop observation deck. Next to it there is a German WW II submarine that can be viewed from the inside.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboe_Naval_Memorial

Kiel itself is, as described, uninspiring - to say the least (apart from a nice residential area on the Western shore of the fjord, which, however, is of no touristic relevance).

Luebeck, as mentioned, is not far away, but the train can take an excruciatingly long 1.5 hours for the relatively short distance of 50 miles. By car the journey would take about 1 hour.

Hamburg is just 70 min by train and offers a plethora of things to do and see - from interesting museums to interesting modern architecture in Europe's biggest city expansion area in parts of the port, a scenic port (which in this case is not an oxymoron), a world class ballet, good opera house, musicals and excellent restaurants.

Pretty scenery in closer proximity to Kiel and apart from the fjord which on which it is situated (about the only thing in Kiel's favour) can be found in the area around Eutin/Malente/Ploen, which is widely referred to as Holstein's Switzerland. The reason is that the area is slightly hilly (which in that part of the world implies mighty altitudes of around 200 feet, the highest "mountain" in Schleswig Holstein tops out at 550 ft) and sports some really pretty lakes. For a leisurely tour of 5 of the lakes you could board a boat in Malente.
http://www.5-seen-fahrt.de/

There's a great free walking tour of Kiel offered in English which runs directly from the cruise ship terminal when a ship is docked.

kielwalkingtours.com