Week 5 – August 17th – 23rd – Mecklenberg Lakes and the Baltic coast
Day 27 – Monday – these Monday mornings – they come round too quickly as they mean Paul is back at his desk. I reckon today is at least 10 degrees cooler than Saturday – if not more. Now I’m not complaining but it was a bit of a shock to the system! We even had some rain, which was annoying as I’d washed the bedding. Looking ahead, the temperatures seem to be in the 20s, so much more like a “normal” UK summer. Whatever that is these days!
We are still in Jabel, in our lakeside spot, and planning a bike ride tonight, into town on the bikes. Hopefully the trail will allow us to have the boys running free, which they – particularly Ted – love doing. There hasn’t been much opportunity for them to do this, despite (or maybe because of?) all the cycle paths. We feel we need to respect their use.
Day 28 – Tuesday – the temperature is still at a cooler point, in the low 20s. It’s made a refreshing change but foiled our swimming plans. Although we’ve probably swum many times in such temps at home! It was showery though, too, which dampened our enthusiasm
We set off early evening, after Paul had hung up his mouse for the day. We were bound for the restaurant in Jabel village. I didn’t have high hopes as it was not listed on Google when I did a restaurant search and the one trip advisor review had not been particularly complimentary. But it was a nice ride and the boys clearly loved their run.
The restaurant was deserted – other than us – and that did nothing to alter my somewhat pessimistic anticipation of the place. Actually, as it turns out, my pizza and Paul’s calzone were both fine and the half pizza I could not eat would make lunch for the next day. I was glad we’d popped out, too. Such a beautiful church in Jabel. It and a few other places we’d recently visited (eg Tangermunde) are built in a style I’ve only just discovered, called “Brick Gothic”. They are often located near the Baltic (but also all over Europe) and brick was used because they are in areas where hardly any natural stone is found.
Days 28 & 29 – Wednesday & Thursday – time to move on. We’d had a lovely few days in Jabel and we’d gladly return, but it was time to move on – to another lake, of course. This time it was the Malchiner See or Lake Malchin, which is 8km long and joins the next big lake – Kummerow – via the Dahmer and Peene canals. It’s a lot more joined up than our own Lake District.
As you leave anywhere, there is very often this sign, which I know my brother would very much approve of!
We are staying at Camping Paradies in Dahmen – possibly an exaggeration, but pleasant nonetheless. But in our book, anywhere near water is pretty good. Its very quiet and not over-lit, like so many campsites are. I understand why they have to have lights, but could they not be motion activated rather than shining bright all night?
They have a great little snack bar, which served the very best fries I have experienced in many weeks of travelling! I rarely eat chips but these were utterly irresistible. Chippy perfection. Crispy, fluffy, perfectly seasoned.
This area has been my favourite bit of Germany, so far, I think and I’d be happy to return – preferably with or on a boat. Maybe that motorhome boat affair has possibilities? Hmm.
I don ‘t think I’ve yet mentioned a German phenomenon which we find really odd, We have taken to filling up with diesel in the morning. Why? Under German law, gas stations are restricted to raising their pump prices only once a day—specifically at midday and can lower prices at any time. This frequently causes a sudden jump of about 7.5 cents per liter during the lunch hour.
Speaking of fuel, the Netherlands have been the most expensive so far. We paid €2.32 (£1.99) or more there. It’s slightly cheaper in Germany it’s around €2.15 (£1.84).
Day 30 – Friday – and time to move on again. As it’s a non-working day for Sumps, it’d be a slightly longer hop to Heringsdorf on the Baltic Coast, near the Polish border. So far, we’ve never had any problems with finding a spot, but it’s high summer and everywhere was chokker in Heringsdorf and also its neighbour Ahlbeck. I guess we might have anticipated that?
One guy suggested a potential spot which we drove to find and it did have plenty of spaces but neither of us wanted to pay good money to stay there. I really wish we’d taken a photo to illustrate the true horror! Imagine a pot-holey, steep, gravel track leading up to what looked like the broken down car park of a disused factory unit. It did have electricity and fresh water available, but there was no way we were staying. Just blank walls, other motorhomes and for €30 plus electricity and water? I think not!
Looking for places took up quite a lot of the day so we decided to forget about Heringsdorf and go further up the coast. We finally found a place that could fit us in and snapped it up. As we filled with water we wondered what the large metal frame at the end of the field had been for. I worked it out when I saw the sign again. The place we were staying was called Autokino Usedom, in Damerow. I knew Usedom was the island (which is part German, part Polish) then it clicked. Autokino – Car Cinema , or Drive-in Movie! Ex.
We got ourselves settled, thankful that the stressy bit was over. I say stressy – that was me! Paul just got on with it. Manoeuvring round narrow streets, reversing out of places we’d just driven into and so on – I’d have had a right meltdown! But I was stressy on his behalf!
The sea was just across the road from the site. Part of a 40km stretch of white sand that looked delightful – but it was chilly (20C) and the sun had disappeared. Typical. Especially as the island has an annual average of 1,906 hours of sunshine, which makes it one of the sunniest islands in the Baltic Sea! But we’d come this way for cooler weather and it looked like we’d found it, so please don’t think I’m moaning. Much….
There was a snack bar or “imbiss” on site and it would have been ruse not to support it. Paul thought he’d try something different – a dish called lángos – a street food of Hungarian extract. It looked like a deep fried pizza, which wasn’t a million miles from correct. He wasn’t over-enamoured! I suspect if he’d tried the traditional topping of grated cheese, sour cream, bacon, onion and parsley it might have been a different story.
I went for something called a “Hamburger Schnitzel” – which wasn’t quite what I imagined it might be! It was a piece of breaded, wafer thin chicken (i’d heard the chef hammering away!) I think? Or maybe pork? With an egg on top. It was the size of a dinner plate and a bit tasteless to be honest. The boys enjoyed it, though, cold the next day!
The boys had a great time racing round on the beach after dinner – we virtually had it to ourselves. It looked lovely – but chilly. I was not tempted to dip any part of me in!
Day 31 – Saturday – and a visit to Germany’s biggest island – Rügen was the plan. I’d found a site that we liked the look of and we set off, calling in at a Backerei for some coffee, bread and other sundries. We arrived in Stralsund – gateway to the island and marvelled at the 3 huge churches on the skyline as we crossed the recently-built Rügenbrücke (2007), which has an overall length of 2,831 metres (9,288 ft), making it one of Central Europe’s largest bridges. It was very impressive.
We had planned to go to the very tip of the island, but a police roadblock put paid to that idea! Instead we decided we’d get a ferry across to the North bit of the island. – the Wittower Ferry. It every much reminded us of the Sandbanks ferry and the geography was very similar – shallow waters and windsurfers. We loved it.
And then it was a short hop to our spot for the night in Schaprode. You can get a ferry across to Hiddensee from the harbour in Schaprode and the site management told us that this weekend, there was a Viking festival. Larks! But that could wait until tomorrow – we needed a beepy and it was grey and showery.
You can see from the map above, how shallow the sea is and the campsite (Campingplatz Am Schaproder Bodden*) is beloved of windsurfers. I reckon you could almost walk across to Hiddensee! The island of Hiddensee is largely car free and was a popular holiday spot for the East Germans. What the map doesn’t show is the stiff breeze coming off the sea. Brr!
*a bodden by the way is “a briny body of water often forming a lagoon
Day 32 – Sunday – we’d decided – unusually – to stay an extra night, which involved a change of pitch but no problem with that. And after quite a few weeks on the road, we used the time to give the van a proper, deep clean. Everything was so flipping dusty after all the dry weather. But it had been just too hot to tackle, hitherto – apart from sweeping the floor and cleaning the kitchen and bathroom for the sake of good hygiene.
It was lunchtime by the time we finished, so we set off on our bikes, down to the harbour to see what this Viking stuff was all about and grab some lunch. Sadly, we’d left it too late. It was blowing an absolute hooley and they were in the midst of packing up. Dammit! We’d missed that then!
Instead, we cycled round the harbour and stopped at the local Fischbrötchen shop for our lunch. The word literally means fish (bread) roll and they are delicious. We could not make up our minds so went for one with herring and one with smoked salmon – not the thin stuff you buy in sheets in Sainsers, but a piece of cooked smoked salmon fillet. We’d share. Both were absolutely delicious, but there was no squabbling. I liked the herring one best.
I really liked their tagline, by the way. It reads “A life without fish rolls is possible but pointless!” I can’t help but agree.
After lunch we went for a bit of a ride round the local roads, but the sky was getting very dark and we arrived back at the campsite just as fat raindrops started pelting us. And so it continued for the rest of the day and evening. Probably the most rainy period we’d had since we set out! And the end of another week!
We are not yet 100% sure what we are going to be doing next week – so you’ll have to come back to find out!
| Period | Miles | Cumulative |
| Week 5 | 204 | 1593 |