July 3 Day 20 Cruise: Warnemunde Germany

Some of our fellow passengers were off early this morning for a four-hour train ride to Berlin, five hours there and then they have four hours back. That just didn’t sound like a good way to do Berlin to either of us.

Patti had done some research and found a group that was called “Friends of Dave”. This is a two person company run by an American who had lived in Germany for the last 20 some years. We had as our tour guide his partner, Christian, about 30 years old who grew up in the area. Christian gave us a wonderful 10-hour taste of this area called Mecklenburg in northern Germany. This was the area right on the border between east and west Germany. It had a very interesting long  history. This area had been in the former east.

The day started out raining and we were all a little bit nervous. Patti had not printed out the exact information where we would meet, and so this caused a little extra stress. But we were finally able to look it up online and connect with our group at about 9:15 in the morning.

The first part of the tour was a couple hour walking tour through the city of Warnemunde. It was made more interesting because Christian had grown up there and was still living in an apartment very close by. He was greeted by friends, and had many stories to tell personally about various houses and areas that his grandmother had lived in, and lots of fun recommendations.

He also talked about the transition of when The Wall came down and the reunification of Germany. This was very interesting to hear from the perspective of another young person who has lived through the transition. The walk was lovely with many old wonderful buildings and lots of good opportunities for photos.

Christian especially wanted to take us to the beach. This city has one of the best beaches on the Baltic Sea. As it was a rainy morning it wasn’t such a nice time to be at the beach, but we understand that this is often a very popular swimming area, as well as a bit further down a popular nude beach. It was rather cold and no one was tempted to take off their clothes today.

Then we gathered together on the bus and headed about an hour down the road to the medieval city of Wismar. This was one of the Hanseatic cities in the middle ages that was basically a coalition of medieval merchants and seafaring wealthy men. Known as the Hanseatic League. For 400 years beginning in the 13th century, it was the big league for the major players in trading from as far north as Bergan Norway to Lisbon Portugal over to Saint Petersburg to London. All kinds of goods traveled those routes.

Wismar was a totally beautiful medieval city. We were immediately struck by how large of churches and cathedrals and city halls were in this rather small sleepy town. We understood the large-scale things were built were really meant as a way to be impressive to other Hanseatic League people. The many buildings this took decades to build and were on a very grand scale. Some might have even taken centuries. We walked the streets and heard the stories, and of course, took a lot of photos.

We were very pleased to have a really lovely lunch in a brewery that was established in 1452. Included in the tour was a beverage including beer or wine and some really delicious traditional German food. Patti especially loved her schnitzel. 

Sitting in such an old place really gives you pause to think how old things are in many places here in Europe. In the U.S. if someplace is one or 200 years old, it is really old! Here are things that were built one or 200 years ago it is referred to as the new area.

After a lovely lunch, we walked around more of the fascinating city streets before boarding our bus for the trip to our next city.

We then headed another 20 minutes down the road to a famous castle in the area. It was so interesting to see the land between these cities, especially the tree lined roads.  The wheat harvest was underway so the fields were full of bright yellow grain.

It is called Schwerin castle. This castle was built again maybe in the 1300 century and is unique in that each of the four directions that you look at those beautiful castle: 

The castle was built with an entirely different architectural style on each side: from Gothic to Italian, to kind of Russian with the onion domes. We have actually never seen anything quite like it. And the place was surrounded by these beautiful old trees most of which were planted about 160 years ago. It was lovely walking around, enjoying the fact that it was not raining, and looking at this beautiful castle. Again, the photo opportunities were many.

We walked around the city for a while longer. Of special interest to us was the large cathedral in the center of the city.  The odd characteristic of this church was the labyrinth under the alter.  It certainly was not set up for any meditative walks.

Just before we boarded the bus back to Warnemunde we found "stumbling stones."  These are stones being added to sidewalks around Europe.  These stones were just outside the houses where Jews had lived prior to the rise of the Nazis.  Each stone represented one person giving the individual's name and which concentration camp they were sent to.  They ended with whether the person died in the camps. Then back on the bus and back to the ship.

There was some traditional German food for dinner and then we spent some time around the pool listen to a local oompah band. They played favorites such as “in München stadt ein Hofbräuhaus”. But also played some John Philip Sousa marches.

Time or bed, with a some more coughing and nose blowing. We will both be glad to be healthy and done with this cold!