Very quickly, we discovered that staying on the Island was going to be pricey - its a summer time destination, and it was summer so its popular. What to do? the very eastern tip of Usedom is actually in Poland, and there was a large town there called Swinoujscie which actually straddled the river mouth between Usedom and the Island of Wolin. To stay in Swinoujscie was much cheaper than staying on the German side of the border, and it was also possible to travel to the area by travelling by train through Poland instead of Germany. Very quickly, our trip to the German seaside became more of a trip to the Polish seaside - but with a heavy emphasis of doing the German side.
For some time, Sasha wanted to go to visit one of the Islands at the north of Germany at the recommendation of her work colleagues. One of these in particular caught Sasha's imagination more than the other - Usedom, because half of it is in Germany and half of it is in Poland. We'd also been talking about doing a trip to the seaside, as Sasha wanted to go swimming in the sea and we hadn't yet explored the northern coast of Germany. So we decided to go to Usedom, and picked out a weekend for it - swimming at the German seaside, with the ability to pop into Poland if we so desired. Very quickly, we discovered that staying on the Island was going to be pricey - its a summer time destination, and it was summer so its popular. What to do? the very eastern tip of Usedom is actually in Poland, and there was a large town there called Swinoujscie which actually straddled the river mouth between Usedom and the Island of Wolin. To stay in Swinoujscie was much cheaper than staying on the German side of the border, and it was also possible to travel to the area by travelling by train through Poland instead of Germany. Very quickly, our trip to the German seaside became more of a trip to the Polish seaside - but with a heavy emphasis of doing the German side. So on the Saturday morning, we made our way to Berlin's Gesundbrunnen station to catch the train that would take us almost 3 hours north of Berlin to Züssow. This was a little bit of a faff - we had to walk to Frankfurter Allee S-Bahn station, catch the S-Bahn a number of stops to Gesundbrunnen, get on our train which then travelled along the ring past Frankfurter Allee - but did not stop until another station well outside of Berlin! At Züssow, we changed to the Usedom BaderBahn Railway (UBB, which is a wholly-owned offshoot of Deutsche Bahn) and travelled the hour and a half on to Swinousjscie, travelling almost the entire length of Usedom in the process. After checking into our accommodation which was halfway between the train station and the beach, we then headed to the beach to explore and swim. There were a lot of people at the beach - Sasha was surprised how many there was considering that it was a warm day but not a hot one, but it was absolutely plinging with people. We started walking our way along the beach towards Germany. At the border, there is a sign on the beach and back from the beach there is a pathway along the border - with two border posts either side of the path, and an arch structure over this path where it intersects with another path. Naturally, we had a bit of fun here taking photos of the divide between two countries! Once we had our fun, we crossed over onto the German part of the beach. No sooner had Sasha remarked that she's thankful for not having seen any FKK (Frei Korper Kultur, Free Body Culture or in a single word, nudity) so far, than we spot it - there was none on the Polish side but quite a bit on the German! We found a beachside cafe where we got ourselves some fresh herring fish burger/rolls and a cider each and sat on the deck chairs at the cafe on the beach. We had our togs/swimwear on already, so we decided to go swimming at the border and had a great amount of fun going back and forth in the water between Germany and Poland leisurely. Perhaps my favourite bit was when Sasha was on one side of the border, and then suddenly swam over to the other side looking a bit guilty - she had peed in the water and was doing the whole "getting away from it" trick, just with an international element and apparently, thats the first time Sasha's peed in the ocean! After we'd had enough at the beach (and had been there for quite a long time, swimming in the ocean or sitting on the sand watching everyone else both in the water and on the beach) we walked along the packed Polish side looking at all the various bars, cafe's and the tattoo parlour that was on the beach (yes, really to that last one!), had a drink from one of them and then wandered back to our hotel to shower and get dressed for dinner. We went to a nice sounding place in the inner town area, away from the main street and took a table outside. We did not last here long however as very quickly some Mosquitos very aggressively started attacking Sasha's ankles so we moved to an inside table. After dinner we decided to have a walk to the beach in the dusky light, possibly down to the Lighthouse and back - only to find as we neared the beach and the main promenade area that there were a few mosquito's around, and they were bothering us both (as well as many others). Sasha is a mozzie magnet, whereas they usually don't care to bother me (I often joke that I don't need insect repellant as I'm naturally repulsive) however these agressive and fairly sizeable buggers were even trying to have a crack at me. We kept beating them off until we approached the sand, found they were worse at the sands edge and then decided to make a run for the waters edge in the hope that they would not be so prevalent by the salt waters edge. This proved not to be the case - as we had discovered while in the water swimming, the sea here was not very salty at all and the mosquitos didn't mind it. So we beat a hasty retreat to our hotel room, beating off any mosquitos that tried to come along and making sure before we went in our room that we had not brought along any stragglers. We decided to stay in the room, free of mozzies the rest of the night! The next morning we checked out of our hotel, and made our way to the train station where we caught the next train. We went as far as Heringsdorf, the main German town on Usedom and walked around the town and down the Pier. At the end of the Pier was a cafe/restaurant where we intended to have a coffee, but got a chocolate sundae instead! after we'd had our fill we went back to the station and caught the train to Zinnowitz, near the western end of Usedom, and changed trains to catch the one to Peenemünde. Peenemünde was the location of a WW2 special weapons factory and launching site, and since we were "in the area" I wanted to go there. They built all kinds of stuff here, even non-weapon stuff - including Railcars - but it is most famous for the production of the V1 and V2 rockets. The V1, known as "The Doodlebug" in Britain was simply a glider-bomb launched on a ramp with a rocket/primitive jet engine attached. It would fly in the particular direction it was fired, and when the fuel ran out (typically over London) it dropped to the ground and exploded. The V2 was vastly different however - it was the first successful "true" rocket as we know them nowadays, much larger than the V1, launched from an upright position, fly in a high arc and fall on its target faster than the speed of sound. This meant unlike the doodlebug, you could no hear it coming and it could carry a far bigger bomb than the V1. The British even tried to cover up the first few V2 explosions and say they were caused by Gas main leaks in order to try and avoid panic amongst the population. As you can imagine they would, the Allies bombed the crap out of Peenemünde when they got the chance. The Nazi's then moved V1 and V2 production to an underground factory under a hill near Nordhausen, which I've also been to - and was right next to the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp whose prisoners were forced to work in the factory. A fair amount of the Peenemünde complex still survives however, particularly some of the storehouses and the Coal-fired Powerplant. It is now a museum which tells the story of these special weapon programs, and in particular the V2 because the V2 basically launched the Space Age. After WW2, the allies were super keen to get their hands on any German advanced tech, with the US, Britain and Soviet Russia particularly interested in the V2. Most of the scientists and engineers working on the V2 program managed to surrender to the US soldiers, and were spirited away to America - no one more so than the person who's brainchild the V2 had been, Werner Von Braun. The Soviets got a few scientists and the British did too - but the Brits concluded their interest after some trials involving the Germans launching the V2 rockets and seeing how the rockets behaved. The V2 technology form the basis for rockets which could reach space - with the Soviets and America both building on the tech, with the American program headed by Werner von Braun himself, designing the rocket which put Neil Armstrong and 11 others on the Moon. Peenemünde also does not hold back at von Braun - later in his career, when Von Braun started to be asked questions about the use of Concentration Camp labour to build the V2 rockets, he always maintained that he didn't know about it until after it started happening, and was not in a position to try and stop it. This was the official US Government position on the matter too, however in the last 20 years or so evidence has emerged which clearly shows he not only knew about the use of Concentration Camp labour before it happened, but actually advocated its use to build the V2 rockets - and the US Government knew this, but deliberately kept it quiet so to make it easier for Werner to build space rockets for them. Its a bit conflicting to know that the success of the Moon Missions was built partially upon the use of Concentration Camp labour, and a large portion of the success of those Missions was due to the man who advocated and authorised the use of that labour to build the V2 rockets. After we'd had a good look around through the Museum and complex, we caught the train back to Zinnowitz where we went to a supermarket to get supplies for dinner - as we would be travelling on various trains for much the rest of the afternoon and evening. We then caught the train from Zinnowitz back to Züssow, where our connecting train was about 15 minutes late; and then we had a 3ish-hour ride back to Berlin, eating dinner on board. This train, unlike our other one stopped at a more convenient station for us to get off at and so it was not much of a trek from Berlin Lichtenberg back to home. In all it was a great trip - we swam in the sea, played along the border between Poland and Germany, and had a great time. The only downside was those insanely aggressive Mosquitos - I have never seen mozzies so large, fly in swarms or attack with such determination and aggression before. Poor Sasha was a bit of a pincushion by the time they were done - we had not thought to bring any repellant with us, but it was a very timely reminder that perhaps it might be needed in our future trips! Will it be our only trip to the German seaside while we are here? quite possibly actually - and definitely our only visit to the Polish seaside! But it would not be our only opportunity to swim in the sea during the summer...
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A Kiwi out travelling in the UK and surrounding countries Archives
August 2019
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