Northern Europe – Aug-Oct 2024 – Page 4

Ostseebad Sellin day 2

We were very lucky to have another beautiful day on the Baltic coast today. It’s kind of fun to look at the weather where we have been recently. Three weeks ago we were in Kiruna, Sweden. Today it is snowing there.

Apple weather report for current weather in Kiruna

And four weeks ago we were sailing up the Norwegian coast. We belong to Facebook groups for the two companies that do that route. they have been having very bad weather the past week. Here is a Facebook post about it.

The two breakfasts buffets we have had in Germany have both had very good bread and they offer a basket for your bread. Very nice!

Today we did a lovely hike along the coast of the Nordperd Cape which is the easternmost point on the island of Rügen where we are staying. It was only about a 4 mile drive to get to where we started.

The cliffs are chalky and we saw warnings to stay back from the cliff edge

For dinner we walked down to the main street that ends in the pier and randomly picked a restaurant. We ended up at Gran Café Italia and had an excellent meal.

Kölpinsee to Ostseebad Sellin

I thought it might be fun to share interesting, and unusual to us breakfast offerings. Sunday morning, at Strandhotel Seerose I couldn’t figure out what the flat round disks in the right bottom corner of the picture were. So I tried one. I’m still not sure. Duke suggested turnip and I think that’s the best guess.

After breakfast we went for a walk. This lady was renting beach chairs. You pay and get a key to your chair.

We checked out at about eleven and headed towards the island of Rügen. We had quite a bit of traffic leaving the island at the draw bridge. I think it had just been up and that’s what caused the backup.

A picture of the drawbridge taken out the car window

Along our drive we saw this windmill and stopped to check it out. the first documentation of a windmill here was in the 1300s. It collapsed in 1972 and was rebuilt and became operable again in the 1990s.

We are staying on the eastern end of the island of Rügen at the Hotel Bernstein. We have been very lucky with the weather this last week. After checking in we went for a walk out to the end of the pier.

Checking in at hotel Bernstein with a champagne welcome drink

We had dinner in the hotel restaurant.

Mielno, Poland to Kolpinsee, Germany

Breakfast buffets are one of the most interesting cultural experiences of traveling. The buffet at Baltivia Resort this morning was a perfect example. There were lots of foods we didn’t recognize like the scoops of what looked like maybe potatoes salad and others we don’t normally see at breakfast, like the big pickles. I tried some kind of liver sausage and onions which was very good.

Our drive today would have taken just over 2 hours if we had taken the freeway but we took the backroads and it took about 4 hours. The picture below is a rest area we stopped at.

Near the end of the drive we entered Germany. German road signs are much easier to guess the meaning of than Polish road signs.

Tonight we are at another wonderful resort on the Baltic coast. The hotel is called Strandhotel Seerose. Seerose translates to water lily.

After we checked in we went for a walk on the beach.

Opposite the beach is a lovely lagoon.

We had an excellent dinner in the hotel restaurant.

Mielno day 2

The area of Pomerania that we are in has changed ownership multiple times over the past two hundred years. It was part of Prussia and the German empire then it was Polish then the Germans invaded at the start of World War Two. Each time it changed hands there was persecution and displacement.

Back in about 1865 Dukes’s Great Grandfather, Wilhelm Noerenberg was born in the village of Krasnik/Kratzig very near where we are staying in Mielno. In 1882 at the age of 17 he emigrated to the United States with his brother and his parents.

The nearest church to Kratzig was probably the 15th century church in Biesiekierz/Biziker. It is mentioned frequently in Noerenberg documents. Today we visited both villages.

The Germans here were all expelled by the Poles after WW 1 so there would not be any Noerenbergs here now.

A cemetery in a nearby village. There were no death dates before 1945 because the Poles got rid of any sign of the Germans.

The 14th century church in Biesiekierz/Biziker

Inside the in Biesiekierz/Biziker church

In Biesiekierz/Biziker this potato monument was across from the church. You can see the church in the background. According to the sign the potato was erected in 1983 on the occasion of breeding 9 new varieties of potatoes.

Right next to the potato is a monument celebrating the Poles who kicked out the Germans. Presumably some of Dukes German relatives were among those kicked out.

The monument. Below is the Google translation of the inscription.

The translation of the Biesiekierz/Biziker monument

The weather today was beautiful. When we got back to the hotel these people were sunning on the beach below our room.

We used the sauna and the pool before dinner.

The shower had some really cool effects complete with the sounds of thunder and a light show.

Duke had slow cooked beef with mashed potatoes and liver.

It was a wonderful day!

Ustka to Mielno

Today we made a fairly short drive west along the Baltic coast to the seaside tourist town of Mielno. We drove back roads and saw a lot of interesting farms, buildings and towns.

This church in a little village we drove through caught my eye so we stpopped to check it out. The sign by the door says it was built in the late 14th century.

In Mielno we are staying at a wonderful hotel, Baltivia Sea Resort. We are right on the beach.

For dinner we walked a couple blocks to the main street of Mielno where we had wonderful fish and chips for dinner.

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