The Ruegen Tour

The last two years I have been complaining about not so good weathers, especially the lack of warmth. Since May 2017 I have stopped for a good reason, the weather have been more than warm enough.

The highlight of the beginning of July was our trip to Ruegen, an island on the Northern coast of Germany.

We had a plan to go there by train after flying to Berlin. The flight seemed to go well... Still when I got my suitcase it had a tape with a text: Security controlled. In the suitcase I found a note with a message that the battery supply and also the extra battery of my camera had been removed because of the danger of fire. I was astounded because I’ve carried the same extra battery before and on the other hand there were a battery in my camera and lap top and hundreds of batteries in the plane.

We started the trip in the afternoon so we stayed the first night in Berlin. There we had a dinner with Jochen, a class mate of my spouse from her German period. We also walked a little around the Berlin Hauptbahnhof and parliament area along the river Spree.

     In front of the Parliament House in Berlin

The second day we took a train to the Northern coast. The railroad led us through the former DDR countryside -  I’ve never been in former DDR area except East Berlin. We saw a bit shabby villages, wheat and corn fields and surprisingly amounts of cranes in the fields – I would rather expect storks. The train was rather slow so we had lots of time to observe the scene.

                The scenes from the train window

The town where we had our pension is Sassnitz, a small and traditional place of tens of small pensions near the sea. 

                 A view to the old town of Sassnitz

Our one was called Villa Elizabeth – almost every female name villas were available. From our glassed balcony we had a view to the sea and the old town of Sassnitz. 

             A view from our balcony

       Some of the feminine villas


When we had our first dinner at a nice restaurant in the old town area we had a wonderful background music played by blackcaps, my favourite singers accompanied by blackbirds. The sound of blackcap was a soundtrack of our entire visit to Ruegen.




Listening to the blackcap concert after my Bismark herring dinner

The third day we hired electrical bikes and headed to Prora, a very specific place. It is situated along the beach and contains one of the longest building of the world. I was built by Hitler for the brave soldiers for their holidays but was never used in that purpose before the Soviet troops conquered the island. Later it was used by the DDR army. Nowadays part of the building is totally ruined, one part is used as a hostel and one part is reconstructed to luxus apartments.

   The front side of the Prora complex


   The backyard of the Prora complex

The cycle path to Prora was pretty OK. except a passage near the harbour of Sassnitz where we had to pass the bridges with very narrow and dangerous looking paths. There were a road to avoid this passage but it had barriers, obviously made by the Nord Stream gas company for its own purposes.

   The bridge mentioned in the text.

We heard that in Finland the heat wave had arrived. In Ruegen we had a little rain – no too much to get us wet. The fourth day we took the train to Stralsund, an old Hanseatic town near Ruegen. The weather was still a bit colder so my spouse had to buy warmer pants instantly when we entered Stralsund. I was fine with my skirt and pantyhose.

We visited only the old part of Stralsund. It was full of old Hanseatic merchant houses, some monasteries and naturally cathedrals. The cathedrals were mostly in bad condition or under the construction – pretty much like we have seen in Estonia. It was sad to see how some depressive decades have slowed down the development compared to the Western parts of Germany. On the other hand some buildings looked quite well reconstructed and cozy.

 The old market square of Stralsund

       

Stralsund street views

The fifth day the heat wave entered also Ruegen so we decided to go to the beach. And there are lots of beaches available on that island.  

My style judge rejected my beach dress so I had to buy a new one.


We chose Glowe North West to Sassnitz where we traveled through the wonderful and very traditional country side by bus. We went straight to the seaside from the bus stop and made s notice that there were lots of dogs swimming in the water – the thing that is normally forbidden on Finnish beaches. Later we found out we managed to choose the very section dedicated to dogs. But it didn’t bother us much so we stayed there. The water was warm enough and compared with the Finnish situation also blue green algae free. 

                   At the Glowe beach

The sixth day the weather was not so cold and just perfect for our next destination, Jassmund National Park just North of Sassnitz. The place is famous of its beech forests and lime stone cliffs. A part of the cliff area is called Königsstuhl ("King's Chair"). The name is based on the story of the Swedish king Charles XII is commanding a sea battle against the Danes from this spot in 1715.

The atmosphere in the beech forest was very relaxing: The green leaf ceiling infiltrating the sunlight and musical background sung by blackcaps, wrens and nuthatches.

The Jassmund National Park 


The seventh day, the day of departing was hot again, including the train. The route was different from the one we came to Ruegen so we could see some more former DDR region. Berlin was also hotter than a week before and we didn’t do anything special except had a dinner – and it wasn’t any special one, either.     

















A hot Thüringer bratwurst in the hot evening of Berlin

On our way back to Finland we saw the Finnish sea area that rather resembled the Finnish pea soup because of the poisonous blue green algae. It was blooming exceptionally strong and early because of the warmth of the water. We thought that was it with swimming in the sea this summer.

When we arrived Helsinki Airport we went to fetch our batteries. The place was near the remote parking so it was easy to find. There we were told that we could have had the batteries in our hand baggage – the fact that seemed very confusing! But maybe the loose battery is more in danger to get fire in the hold of the plane because the baggage there moves with more force than in the cabin lockers.

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