The Datebook Datebook Autumn 18 Calendar of Events | Page 13

RÜGEN ISLAND
By Marianne Gray
Photos by Siegfried Tesche
Glorious white beeches, chalk cliffs and big open skies.
zi holiday camp.
Plan of Prora Na
R
ügen on the Baltic Sea
is Germany’s furthest
north and largest island.
Known for its glorious white
beaches, chalk cliffs and big
open skies, it used to be in
East Germany and is still an
almost exclusively German
seaside resort. It is very
pretty with its huge shady
woodland and primeval
beech forests, elegant
seaside resorts, villages full
of sleepy thatched cottages
and a National Park known
for its deer, white-tailed
eagles and goshawks.
There is plenty to do beyond
swimming and sunbathing. In
Sassnitz there’s a British
submarine, a great black hull
with HMS Otus written on it
and a Union Jack fluttering
overhead. The ticket seller
warned me that the circular
entrances between sections
were small and they were so
right. I ended up with bruises
up and down both legs. And I
was very pleased that I would
never have to be a submariner,
with those tiny short bunks and
only two loos for the entire
crew.
Above & Right:
Submarine HMS Otus.
A view from the
lighthouse.
Another excellent thing to do
on Rügen is to climb the nearly
200 steps up the lighthouse at
Cape Arkona and view the
Baltic Sea at the end of the
rolling yellow wheat fields. And
then take the nearby ferry to
Hiddensee. It’s a 20 minute
crossing (about £1 per person)
to the island which is 16km
long, pencil-slim and very rural.
It is full of fairy tale thatched
cottages with steep roofs,
colourful gardens and horse-
drawn transport.
Of course, on Rügen you could
just eat apple tarts, drink some
unusual (Stortebeker) beer and
sunbathe nude on countless
beaches. But it would be a
shame to miss the magnificent
Putbus, a town entirely of grand
white buildings unlike any
other, or shop for fish on the
harbour, or see the 18th
Century Granitz hunting lodge
or look for treasure in the
village markets. Being part of
Germany, most people speak
some English, the roads are
excellent (except when they
suddenly slip into East German
cobbles) and there are cycle
paths everywhere.
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And then there’s Prora, the
holiday resort Hitler built for
20,000 Nazis. The complex at
Prora was destined to be a
vast hotel of six-storey blocks
stretching along the beach for
almost five kilometres just
south of the
charming seaside
town of Binz; each
block was to hav e
its own facilities.
Hitler’s plans
included a theatre,
cinema, cafes,
restaurants, piers
outside big enough
for cruise ships,
swimming pools with
wave machines, a
festival hall for
20,000 and solarium
halls. It was a true
Strength Through Joy
(Kraft durch Freude) project.
But it was never to be. When
the Second World War broke
out in 1939, construction was
put on hold and instead,
unfinished, it became a shelter
for people left homeless by
bombing raids, a military base
for the invading Soviets, later a
base for some of the East
German army, a convalescent
home, a centre for Balkans
asylum seekers and a youth
hostel. Recently it got the seal
of approval for renovation and
for sale as flats. Already people
are buying space for 3 to 7
euros per square metre.
During The Blitz in London, the
V-2 would scream overhead
and then go totally silent while
you waited to see if it was
going to destroy your home.
V2 Rocket.
There’s a V-2 standing on the
lawn in front of the technical
laboratory where the rockets
were built, now a museum.
How to get there:
Fly to Hamburg or Bremen
and hire a car.
For brochures in English:
https://issuu.com/inselruegen/
docs/insel rugen erlebnisinsel
englisch
Footnote: It would
be a pity not to
go to nearby
Peenemünda on
the neighbouring
island of
Usedom to see
where Wernher
von Braun,
in 1936,
designed the
first functional
liquid-
propellant
rocket, the V-2.
THE LONDON & UK DATEBOOK
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