We had passed into the Baltic sea last night, and docked in Warnemünde early in the morning
We had an even earlier start this morning, I won’t mention the time as it will only encourage ridicule! Room service again provided breakfast. The weather had changed for the worse, it was 16C heading to 19C which was OK, but it was raining!
We headed out on a coach to a monastery at Doberan. The first abbey was built there in 1171 but was destroyed 8 years latter in the war of succession. The current building was completed in 1368.
From here it ws back on the coach to the railway station for a journey on a 1930’s era steam train.
We were on the last carriage with an open door looking back down the line. This didn’t last for long as the engine swapped ends and we were now at the front of the train with a very good view of the engine.
This was about as close as you could legally get to an operating steam engine. As the journey progressed we certainly got the steam experience as the carriage filled with smoke.
The first part of the journey took us down the main street, the continuous sound of the train bell and whistle was certainly head ache inducing, the smell of the smoke unlocked memories from early childhood.
After a couple of station stops on the main street we headed out into the country and no more bells.
We traveled for about 30 minutes more before arriving at the sea-side town of Kühlungsborn Ost
We stopped off at an old bakery in town for a sample of the local pastry and a coffee. The pastry was tasty, but in German style very heavy.
In order to offset the recent calory in take we headed off for a walk along the coast. As mentioned in the title, this area was part of East Germany until re-unification in 1990. The two pictures above show a watchtower use by the GDR to prevent people escaping to the west by boat.
Along the beach were hundreds of mini cabanas that could be rented for the day.
We headed back to the bus, parked opposite the local church. From here we drove back through the countryside to the ship. The rain had stopped for a while but as we got closer to the ship it started again.
Below are a couple of pictures of the town of Warnemünde taken from our balcony. The first shows the more drab buildings of the communist era.
In the picture below are the more modern houses, with some older communist era apartments in the background.
We had see a ferry boat passing quite a few times with a huge tower in the middle of it. A little Googling revealed what it was.
The tower is 30m tall and is rotated by the passing air, this is a Flettner rotor sail. The sail is coupled to a generator and the power from it is stored in batteries. This reduces the amount of diesel power that is required to run the ship.
Tomorrow we are at sea all day, so I’m not sure if there will be a blog.