Leipzig, Rügen and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

Leipzig was long on my tertiary list of German cities to visit. As in... not a priority at all, but I'll make a stop-over sometime and give it a quick look, mainly for it's connnection to a certain man with the intials JSB. I fully expected the usual set-up that's typical of the large cities of the former DDR- a belated attempt to restore the city's pre-war glory after the communists-era onslaugt of Plattenbau (those big soul-crushing apartment blocks beloved only by government central planners). My preconceptions could not possibly have been more wrong.

Quite simply, Leipzig is by far the most attractive large city of the former DDR. The communists managed to throw in a few Socialist Realism monstrosities here and here, but most of the city appears to date from that extravagant period of the German Empire, similar to Bonn, Hamburg, Wiesbaden and those parts of Darmstadt that survived the war (and what most of Berlin used to look like). Even outside the center of the city, that same fin de siecle flair shines through. I'm not sure if Leipzig necessarily merits more than a day or two, but clearly I should have given it more than a one-night stopover.

One of the most prominent buildings from before the 19th century is, of course, the Thomaskirche. An attractive enough church, but if you're a classical music fan, you know already why I went out of my way to visit this house of worship. This is like the Cavern Club or Abbey Road Studios for Beatles fans. It's the church were Johann Sebastian Bach spent most of his career as organist and city composer. I didn't have enough time to visit the museum in the adjacent school, but fortunately, the current organist was practicing Bach's music when I walked in. To hear the master's music performed on the very organ where he once regularly played... goosebumps. I was only in the church for about 20 minutes, but in that time span, three different people layed flowers on Bach's tomb. And not to forget Leipzig's other famous composer, there's a statue of Felix Mendelsohn outside of the church.

I would have liked to explore the giant monument to the Battle of All Nations, the opera house, the Nicholaikirche (historically important for the role it played in the downfall of the DDR), the gigantic Hauptbahnhof, and the zoo (supposedly, one of Germany's best and most innovative), but I simply didn't have the time. I guess I'll just have to come back again. How has Leipzig escaped the notice of American tourists?

One downside... all across Germany, the number of smokers is in decline. Someone forgot to tell Leipzig, though. The restaurant where I ate dinner was filled with tobacco smoke (I thought that was outlawed in Germany), I walked through a cloud of cancer while strolling through the popular restaurant street and my hotel room reeked of nicotine, and it was supposedly one of the nicer hotel rooms in town.

Next, on to the island of Rügen on Germany's Baltic coast.

My previous trips to Germany's northern hinterland were all conducted by ICE train. This time, because my to-do list on Rügen would be very difficult without a car, I decided to drive. Something struck me that I failed to notice from the window of a train moving nearly 300 km/hr... northeast Germany, particularly the federal states of Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is VERY sparsely populated compared to the south and center. Driving on the Autobahn network further south, you see one town after the other. Up north, though, you only see very small hamlets, forests and pastureland. I don't think this is a legacy of the communist period, but probably moreso a result of the economic structure of the old Prussian heartland and the two Mecklenburger duchies. Far fewer towns (like in the west and south), far more large feudal agricultural estates. Kind of like the difference between the the NE of the US and the old South, or at least, the way it used to be.

Now, onto the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea. I've heard more and more over the years that it's one of Germany's hidden secrets (maybe not so secret if I kept hearing about it). My destination is the seaside bathing resort of Binz. It's a very elegant little beach town, similar perhaps to De Hanne in Belgium or Cape May in New Jersey. Lot's of old resort villas built in that distinctive 19th-century style you only find by the sea. It has a long promenade that spans the lenghth of the town, the usual restaurants, bling botiques, and a grand bathing house. On the northern edge of town, I also noticed a cluster of much larger block buildings that look like a communist-era attempt to re-christen Binz as a "People's Resort" (Wikipedia confirms my suspicion). These structures have now been renovated into something that looks more appropriate to the setting. There's also an interesting-looking Jagdschloss (sort of an elaborate hunting lodge) that overlooks the town. All in all, a very pleasant town. Next, onto nearby Jasmund National Park on the northeast corner of Rügen.

Jasmund National Park occupies the eastern edge of the penninsula of the same name on Rügen. It features extensive primeval beech forests and white chalk cliffs that drop directly to the sea (made famous by Caspar David Friedrich's Chalk Cliffs of Rügen. The park features extensive hiking trails through the forests and along the cliffs, with one wooden walkway that descends down to the rocky beach below. Although you can drive through the park, you can't drive to the reception center at Königstuhl (a prominent point overlooking the sea). You have to either hike, cycle or take a shuttle bus from the nearby town of Sassnitz or the small nearby hamlet of Hagen. I didn't realize what the big deal about the beech forests was until I learned that these dense woods formerly covered most of Europe. Now, there's only a few remaining. Plus, when you walk through one, you really get a "I'm in Middle-Earth" feeling.

After exploring Jasmund, I drove to the northern tip of Rügen, Kap Arkona, site of a few lighthouses. The drive was gorgeous, but the landscape and vernacular architecture barely resemble the Germany I know. It looks more like Scandinavia. Kap Arkona is closed off to non-residen vehicular traffic, so I had to park my car outside of the nearby village of Putgarten. You can procede further on foot, via tram of rent a bicycle. I opted for the last option. Putgarten looks like the type of scenic village occupied first by artists, now partially taken over by tourists. Near Kap Arkona is the tiny ancient fishing village of Vitt, which provides the answer for the unasked question of "If Hobbits were fishermen, what would their village look like?" Although not immune to the economic pressures of modern tourism, some of the residents still go out in their boats everyday. You can buy freshly caught and smoked fish right on the beach. They guys I saw pulling their boat out of the water looked exactly like you'd think such fishermen would.

Another common inquiry we read on this website is "I'm going to Germany, I want to see WWII sites", which I think usually means "I want to see Nazi stuff." As I've previously written, the physical remains of the Third Reich in Germany are surprisingly scant. Rügen, however, contains one of the largest construction projects ever attempted by the Nazis, the giant would-be beach resort at Prora. Which just so happens, is immediately north of Binz. I drove by to see if it's possible to explore the grounds, but it looks like the entire site is closed off- it might be accessible by bicycle or on foot, however. The resort was never officially opened during the National Socialist period, and it's remained as sort of white elephant ever since. I read that there's plans to redevelop Prora into everything from a retirement home, a luxury hotel, a youth hostel or a combination of all of the above. From what I could see behind the fence that surrounds the complex, it looks like it was built in that same vaguely sinister style that only a Nazi could love. I can't imagine a creepier place to spend a beach holiday.

Good and an interesting report. I picked up a word from your report Plattenbau to describe those ugly, commie era, huge apt buildings stretching a square block. I never ate at a restaurant the times I was in Leipzig so I didn't notice the smokers. That feeling of seeing the most smokers in Germany struck me in Saxon-Anhalt...the week-end in Magdeburg in 2009.

Outside of the south, ie north of the Main, is north Germany with lots to see, the good, bad and the ugly. Historical and culturally, such as Leipzig, Dresden, Meißen, Weimar, etc are treasures too. One obvious reaction is that the "feel" in different in the East from that in the West.

Tom,

Thanks for renewing my memories of our 2010 Wikinger self-guided bike tours in northeastern Germany. We toured the Mecklenburgische Seenplatte and Rügen-Fischland loops on back to back weeks. This was a Germany not on the usual American tourist track. Beyond the Blue Book as you said.

Our day on Insel Hiddensee was especially memorable in its absence of motorized traffic. I can still visualize a dog trotting under a horse drawn cart.

Your mentioned of the relic structures on Rügen (Plattenbau?) deserves a story in itself (thank you George of Canada). The Arkona Bunker was an interesting sight as was landsend. But my photo capturing a 18.9 m/s wind speed reading on the weather service sign board is a photo book memory of struggling to peddle at even 8 kph in our ride out to Arkona Point.

The RS header "Boldly go...wherever" certainly applies to northeastern Germany.

http://www.wikinger-reisen.de/radreisen/europa/7668R.php
http://www.wikinger-reisen.de/radreisen/europa/7667R.php

Finishing off, I wanted to visit Stralsund on my way home. Another city that was completely off my radar, it sits right by the bridge before you cross the channel onto Rügen. The huge brick Gothic and Hanseatic-style buildings beckoned very enticingly as I drove by, but unfortunately, it was raining too heavily to make a visit worth the effort. So, not wanting to drive halfway across Germany in wet clothes, I passed on Stralsund. I was hoping the rain would have let up by the time I approached Rostock, but same story, it was coming down just as hard.

A few random thoughts:

I took a wrong turn on the way back and ended up cutting through the countryside of Mecklenburg. My initial impression held... this is a very sparsely populated region of Germany. Those few settlements I passed appeared to be almost on the edge of abandonment. The sense of emptiness reminds me very much of certain areas of Scandinavia.

Complaining about German beer is like complaining about the sun in California... one should be so lucky. But sometimes, you miss a little variety amongst all the golden lagers and Hefeweizen. So, I had the pleasure of sampling several of the products from the Störtebeker brewery, based in Stralsund. This is one of the very few German brewers that produces ales in addition to the usual lagers. The beer is usually served in a neat looking glass too. It's shape evokes a wind-driven sail.

Like other areas of Germany, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has a region called "Switzerland" (Mecklenburgische Schweiz), and like all the others (Franconian, Saxon, Holstein), it looks nothing like Switzerland whatsoever.

For better or for worse, parts of Rügen look like time has stood still. For better, because some of the old hamlets look like they come right out of another century. For worse, because that means that they haven't benefitted from modern road surfacing. And also for worse, in places it looks like time has barely elapsed from the communist period. While Binz has returned to something resembling it's German Empire glory period, the town of Sassnitz to the north looks like it's still struggling to clean up and recover after years of neglect. And nearby Sagard might be one of the most unattractive small towns I've seen anywhere in Germany.

Although Rügen was thankfully almost mosquito-free, driving through the hinterland of Mecklenburg and Brandenburg, the grill of my car and windsheild was plastered with the liquified remains of thousands of insects. Must be a very boggy region of Germany.

I'd never heard of the Deutsche Alleenstraße (tree-lined roads) before encountering the portion that winds through Rügen, but it makes for a very scenic drive, if a little rough on the wheels at times.

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern gets my vote for the weirdest looking coat of arms of Germany. It looks like one of the Mecklenburg dukes of old commisioned his heraldry from the court jestor.

The two most repugnant political parties (to me) in Germany enjoy some of their best polling numbers in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the neo-Nazi NDP, and the neo-Communist Die Linke. Because the European Parliament elections occur very soon, you see the election posters everywhere. In the area of Germany where I live, I'm not accustomed to seeing so many campaign posters for these two nasty parties. Also kind of odd that two very anti-EU parties are fielding candidates at all.

In summary, it was fascinating to see another side of Germany that's so different from the one I know. If you're visiting Berlin, add Leipzig to your list of worthy stop-overs on your way to some of the more well-known destinations in the south. It probably mertis a full day, maybe two if you add the zoo.

Although I liked Rügen and I'm glad I saw it, it definately isn't for first-timers. Beautiful, but very isolated. You really need to know at least some German to get by because very few people speak English, even in a relatively well-developed beach resort like Binz. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern looks like a great destination for nature lovers, hikers, boating and cycling enthusiasts, but if you're looking for scenic towns with ready-made-tourist infrastructure, this isn't the place to go.

I suspect that the low levels of English language skills are a function of the Russians not wanting the East Germans to hear western propaganda. (Barvarian Germans also seemed to have a smaller number of English speakers than those from the West). My Rick Steve's German phrase book was mostly worthless when it came to menus and food.

I also learned that many of the former East Germans think that the former West Germans are not doing enough to help them economically. And my West German friends think that the East Germans are getting too much help.

Is it Rick Steves who says that traveling is an education in global politics?

"I also learned that many of the former East Germans think that the former West Germans are not doing enough to help them economically"

It's estimated that the equivalent of $1 trillion have transferred from west to east since the reunification of Germany. Gives you some perspective of why the mythical Schwabische Hausfrau is so against any more transfers of EU money to southern Europe.

"...look like they come right out of another century." Bravo ! Too bad you didn't have more time for Strasund and its famous museum.

About language differences in the eastern part as opposed to the western part: You can bet that in the west in the tourist frequented areas, the chances are the west Germans seeing you as the obvious tourist will address you in English first, assuming that you don't know their language. In the eastern part that isn't so. You'll be addressed in German first, regardless, be given a German menu instead of being asked if you want an English one, addressed in German on the trains at the time ticket check, etc.

Botttom line, if you want to engage the locals in their language, travel in the east. They 'll be linguistically accommodating.

Apparently some former East Germans did very well judging from the size of the many big boats that I saw.

George, thanks for the Slate link. The article gives the impression that Prora is some isolated monstrosity, but it's literally 5 minutes down the road from Binz and there's vacation housing right in the immediate vicinity. And as always happens on Slate, I see that the comments section is filled with the usual far left vs. far right vitriolic mudslinging that has very little to do with the actual article's content.

Late addendum. I made a short trip back to the US, and in a book store, I noticed the Blue Book sitting on the shelf. This was the first time I'd actually seen it in person for years, so I thought I would give it a quick purusal. I was pleasently surprised that Leipzig made the cut, but I was also puzzled by the description of it being the most "architecturally drab city" in the book. Not by a long shot would I describe Leipzig as "drab"!

Very good information Tom. We really had a great time visiting this area of Germany with friends from Stralsund as our guides.