Usedom Island

Another weekend, another trip to the coast apparently. This trip we managed to plan about five days before departure, which is a lot for us. We decided to leave after work on Friday, to get the most of Saturday and make a full weekend of it.

We planned to spend Friday night in Ückermunde, a town we have already visited twice, but only as a dinner stop on the way home from other trips to the Baltic. Somewhere on the drive we started seeing a beautiful sunset and I kept asking my boy to stop so I could take pictures, but for ten or fifteen minutes there wasn't a good place to stop. We eventually just pulled onto the side of the road and I ignored all of the cars driving by to take my photos.

We arrived after dark in Ückermunde and I forgot to take pictures on our walk through town. There was a festival on all weekend, but we decided the "concert" wasn't worth the entry fee and we just went back to our hotel. The town is so small we could hear it fom our room anyway.

The first time we stopped in Ückermunde for dinner we actually ate at the restaurant in the hotel, so we decided to finally stay there this time. But, somehow we booked (or they put us in) the Ferienwohnung (vacation house) instead of the hotel proper. We had a kitchen, two bedrooms and a living room and all for the price of a double room. It was an average hotel with furniture similar to 75% of the hotels we stay at, but it also had these crazy light switches. I'm convinced they are old school East German light switches.

We left earlyish the next morning so we could make the rest of the journey to Usedom, taking the scenic route to get to the top of the island instead of starting in the middle.

I love fields of hay bales and we passed many massive fields on our route.

This viking pointed to a McDonald's, where I bought (and returned) a McFlurry that wasn't mixed at all. The three people working at the restaurant claimed pouring a scoop of Smarties on top of ice cream equaled a McFlurry. Uh, no.

 

We started up at Peenemünde, which we visited the last time we went to Usedom, in March. My boy wanted to visit the submarine, which was closed last time. I had to pay an extra euro to be allowed to take photos inside!

Who let a woman on the crew?

How did they keep track of what these all did?  I would be so afraid of turning the wrong wheel.

We passed the deserted gas factory again. I wanted to go inside, but I'm a bit too much of a woos for that. I have my tetanus shot and all, but one corner of the building had completely fallen, and there are no floors in the photo below, so I stayed safely outside the fence.

Next, we had to hunt down the beach, because I was going to swim this time, no matter what. But, there was one problem - it was after lunch, the day was gorgeous and there was no place to park. Parking on the side of the road was off-limits and we didn't want to get a ticket. The large parking lot had no lines, so a lot of cars took up more space than they really needed. We tried quite a few places and actually got out of the car once before we realized the other cars all had coloured and numbered parking tickets that allowed them to park there.

But, we finally found a place to park after at least an hour searching. The beach was sandy and not that busy (notice that the sky is a litte more grey...) and we found a place to park our blanket. And then we went into the water. Now, the water was a little murky, but that might have been a good thing because it hid all of the seaweed. There was a lot. I know, I hate seaweed. But this wasn't the full plant type, more like random strings, so I made mysel bear it. And while I didn't get my head wet, I was wearing a swimsuit and got parts of it wet, so, I'm counting that as swimming in the Baltic. It's my to-do list, I can make my own rules!

An example of the seaweed. We found this stuck to the velcro on my boy's shorts. The water was FULL of this. And as I was taking this photo it started to rain. So, we packed up and went back to the car. I think we were on the beach for less than 20 minutes, but at least we got in the water.

Next, we went to the hotel to check in so we could also change out of our swimsuits again. We choose a hotel on the Polish side of the border, in Swinoujscie, because I had hotel points and it was free. Such a good choice! The hotel was lovely and we plan to stay there again.

After we checked in, we headed out in search of a restaurant. I found points on the map that looked interesting and we drove out to them.

The water looks nice enough in the picture above, but it actually looked pretty disgusting. What is that stuff?

On Sunday we headed down to Szczecin to do some shopping. And that's when we discovered that there isn't actually a bridge on the Polish side to connect the island to the mainland. We had to take a ferry! And surprisingly, it was free. I stayed in the car to crochet, but my boy got out to take some photos. The cars were quite snugly packed and I don't think I could have gotten out if I had tried. This was also the first ferry/boat I've been on this summer that actually made me feel nauseous.

I wish I had taken more photos on Sunday, because it was a pretty drive. We stopped to buy honey on the side of the road and stopped in two towns to do some shopping. Next time we go, we plan to take the ferry that goes from Szczecin to Swinoujscie.

Volkspark Potsdam

I've wanted to visit Volkspark Potsda for a while, because every large patch of green on a map makes me curious.  I took the tram to the far north of Postdam and when I entered the park I discovered it actually costs 1€ to visit!

At the entry to the park I could see the Pfingstberg in the distance.  I wasn't feeling up to an uphill hike, but going there is definitely on my Potsdam to-do list.

The Volkspark itself was... okay.  It's not my type of park, in that it seems to be used more for events than just lounging in the park for the day. And lounging in the park is a very big Berlin thing.  I guess things are different in Potsdam...

When I was already on the tram home I discovered that this building had a dinosaur exhibit.  Maybe they should have put some advertising behind the building as well? Not everyone uses the main entrance.

 This makes me wish I played beach volleyball.

And that was it.  I'm glad I visited, and now I know my way around for their next event, but I won't be making regular visits.

last minute trip to Cuxhaven

On Friday, we didn't have any weekend plans except for a possible shopping trip to Poland on Sunday. Then my boy said he was free on Saturday as well, so within an hour we had booked a car and a hotel. We booked the car first because I thought I had found a hotel in Prerow for Saturday night. Turns out the website kept the "September" from a previous booking, so I was looking for a midweek hotel next month. When I entered the real dates, there was no availability. The Germans spend August on vacation, so it's hard to make last-minute plans like do. When my boy picked the car up 90 minutes after we booked it, they said they've never had a booking/pick up that quick.

We looked at the map of Germany's Baltic coast again and decided to go to Cuxhaven, which a coworker told me about a few weeks ago. It's a 450 km / 4 hour drive, so this trip was a bit crazy, but that's what life is for, right?

We booked a Golf to save money, but we got a BMW. Woohoo. We left a little before 8:00, so we expected to arrive near 12:00, but then our gps kept adding a delay - from 30 minutes to 71. I pulled out my phone and found an alternate route that avoided the autobahn. It probably only saved us 30 minutes, but at least we were moving the whole time.

And when we arrived in Cuxhaven, mother nature was against us.

It started to rain just as we arrived. The rain didn't last long, but the sky was still dark and rain was an obvious threat.

 We got some Nutella crepes to eat while we walked to the beach.

The beach was almost empty. It would have been perfect except for the fact that it was too cold to actually want to rent a chair and sit down for a while.

We plan to go back to Cuxhaven because this little island can actually be walked to at low tide. it's only 14km away. Or we can take the lazy option and choose the horse-pulled carriage.

We drove to another beach with even darker clouds and a bunch of parasailers. When we had enough of the cold and the wind, we drove the 30 minutes to our hotel, a renovated building from 1747. We splurged a little on the hotel, because how can you not when it looks like this?

After checking in, we headed out again to look for a restaurant and see what was around the town. As always, I just picked points on the map and we drove out to them. We saw so many animals on the way.

But we couldn't find any restaurants. At all. None. So, we got a kebab plate, and then some ice cream.

We then drove to another point on the map with a view over the lake. As soon as we got out of the car it started to rain.

 When we left the hotel in the morning we found a family of peacocks!

We had enjoyed driving through the countryside the day before so I charted a route to Hamburg that followed the water. It was quite fun to stop for the road to open to allow a sailboat to pass.

We stopped to investigate the ferry in Lühe, but decided to just keep driving to Hamburg.

And why did we go to Hamburg? We wanted hamburgers. We discovered this small chain of restaurants in Hanover, and with five or six locations in Hamburg, we needed to stop at one.

We had more traffic delays on the trip home, so we took more small roads, where we saw this guy. I don't even know what to say about him, but his car is awesome.

This was a really nice weekend, even with the rain at our actual destination. The best parts were when we got off the autobahn, so the road less traveled really is better.

Hanover and Robbie Williams

A couple of weekends ago we took a quick trip to Hanover to see Robbie Williams in concert. I bought the tickets last November, so it's rather bad that we waited until about two weeks before the concert to actually book the hotel and plan the trip. I think we weren't sure if we were going to make it part of a longer trip or just visit Hanover, but I wish I had at least booked the hotel in Hanover because by the time I finally got around to it our options were extremely limited!

The concert was at the end of a heat wave, so we didn't do as much in Hanover as we should have. We basically just walked around the altstadt for a while before finding a late lunch and then going to the hotel to rest away from the heat (and a sudden rain shower) before the concert.

Hanover is so beautiful, though, with so many old buildings. Berlin doesn't have the same "old German" feel as so many other cities in this country.

We drove to the concert, struggled to find a parking spot and walked around half the stadium before we found the one entrance we were allowed to use. With approximately 50,000 people in the crowd I guess they need to enforce who goes where.

The tickets said the gates opened at 3:00 for a 6:30 start, but the concert actually started closer to 8:00. So, basically everyone in the front half of the standing section was completely drunk by the time the concert started. We saw two or three first aid teams walking around the crowd, with a few people gurneyed out and some just escorted out for extreme drunkenness. 

Olly Murs opened the concert and he put on a good show. And the man of the hour, Robbie Williams, obviously put on a great show.  

And the sunset behind the stadium was beautiful.