Wandering Warnemunde

Short post for a long stay in port today as we made our first stop in Germany.  

Warnemunde is the largest cruise homeport in Germany, which isn't saying a whole lot because it's not a very large port.  The nice thing is it's close to the town so getting into town is pretty easy, as long as you make your way around the railroad tracks that are next to the port.  It was also our first stop in the former East Germany.

We ended up doing a short tour over to Rostock via bus.  While Warnemunde belongs to Rostock there is land that doesn't belong to either in between.  Rostock was mostly destroyed during WW2 due to its being a city producing both airplanes and submarines, plus having a strategic location on the Baltic Sea.  Our first stop here was St. Peter's Church.

Most of St. Peter's was one of the buildings destroyed in the war.  It is located on the site of where the city of Rostock was founded, on a hilltop overlooking the river below.  The architectural style of the church is called Hanseatic Brick Gothic, or Hanseatic Baked, Brick Gothic, and the original church dates back to the 13th century, making it the oldest in Rostock.

The Warnow River isn't far away, down the line of sight from the old wall.  The house next to the church was typical of the old style, although very few of those remain here.

The only part of the church to survive the war was the north chapel.  The center chapel was rebuilt after the reunification of Germany in the 1990s.  There wasn't as much interest in churches during the days of Communism, nor was there any money to be had in East Germany for such ventures.

The church's tower was the last thing to be added to the building.  You can see in this photo that the structure looks a little off balance, the portion on the left is the oldest north part, what would have been the south chapel on the right was never rebuilt.

An interesting but more modern metal and wood door adorns the entrance to the building.

Someday they may reinstall the original bell to the top of the tower.  This pretty set of wooden doors were in the main chapel.

A beautiful and modern set of stained glass windows are about the only thing that are an adornment for this simple Lutheran church.

There aren't even any pews in this new version of the old church.  It is clean and spacious.

A closeup of the center stained glass panel.

This simple Lutheran altar was certainly different from the ornate ones we've seen lately in all of the Catholic churches of Spain and France.

We took a quick look into the old north chapel as well.  The entire church would have been similar to this originally.  The white down the center are pieces of origami of varying sizes that are supposed to be symbolic of people coming together.  Different types of displays go on in here often.

Original walls would have looked like the column on the left, the floor in this chapel is original as well.

The ceiling is also original, definitely got some Gothic going on here in the soaring height.

After St. Peter's we were then dropped off near the old city center, which was pretty much like getting dropped off at a mall.  Not a lot here to see but we did stop to sit and enjoy a local bratwurst in a roll.  At first I thought it was weird to have such a short roll for a long brat but we saw them served the same way several other places.  It was really delicious, both the meat and the crusty roll.

I went to the bakery across the street and bought a couple of what looked like danishes but neither of them were stellar, this cherry one was the better of the two.  You know the other one wasn't worth eating if I tossed it in the trash without a qualm.

Looking down it was interesting to see that the manhole cover referenced Hanseatic Rostock.  During the 13th to 15th centuries the Hanseatic League, or Hansa, were a confederation of merchant guilds and north German market towns that joined together to promote and protect their trading interests and one another.  They dominated and controlled the trade in the North and Baltic Seas in Northern Europe in their time, making this area a seat of power. Rostock was their center for shipbuilding and shipping.  We'l be hearing more about the Hansa over the next few days.

The wall on the left may have been a bit of the old wall that used to surround the old city.  We had though this tower at the end of the street was older than it was, it just dates back to 1991.

One of the fun features of the area that is attached to some nearby green space is this fountain that the kids were enjoying on a warm day.

Our meeting place to catch the but back to Warnemunde was St. Mary's Church.  It is the largest of the churches in Rostock and also dates back to the 13th century.  It has been a Lutheran church since 1531.  We didn't go inside this one.

Back in Warnemunde Karl and I headed out to find some sand for my collection.  We walked along the river for a ways to get there.  The town itself, another smallish one with a population around eight thousand, is situated just off the Baltic Sea at the estuary of the Warnow River, which is fitting since Warnemunde translates as “mouth of the Warnow”.  It was a fishing town for most of its history, with a pretty harbor but then its stretch of white sandy beach was discovered by German sun seekers and it became a resort town.

We saw lots of caravans, better known as RVs in the U.S., parked in a large campground along the harbor.  It was interesting to see a bunch of them on this ferry heading to another destination.

Probably the best feature in Warnemunde is its beach.  It is Germany’s widest beach along the Baltic coastline with a long stretch of white sand. 

There were a lot of people out enjoying a warm and sunny day at the beach here in Warnemunde.

Besides the large ferry pictured above there were many small boats going in and out of the harbor.  This is the same entrance Serenade used to come into port that morning.

Two of the easy to spot features of the town are the lighthouse and a building called The Teapot.  The symbol of the town is the Leuchtturm or Lighthouse, its most famous landmark.  One of the interesting things about this structure that stands 105 ft high is that the exterior is tiled.  The Teapot or Teepott, the building with the curved roof, is the second most famous landmark in Warnemunde.  It’s an example of East German architecture from the 1960’s and after a facelift a few years back contains restaurants and a sea voyage exhibit. 

Hydrangeas with a color to die for!

As we made our way back to Serenade, pictured in the background, we saw hundreds of locks of loves.  This was one of the most colorful collections of them that I'd seen anywhere in the world.  After lots of walking we were plenty ready to get back to the ship and put our feet up.  There was lots to enjoy in Warnemunde and I was wishing we'd just spent the day exploring there, sometimes you just never know.