Germany: Warnemünde & Rostock
Sep. 7th, 2008 04:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deirdreWhen we'd booked this trip, I hadn't really looked at where Warnemunde is, and thus hadn't really noticed that it was in the former East Germany. We landed in Warnemünde, which offers a lot of ferry boats and rail service to Berlin. The area has become a holiday spot for Germans, so there were a lot of German tourists in the port town.
We took a tour to Rostock, which was heavily bombed during WW2 as it was the source of much of Germany's airplane and ship building. Despite the annihilation of most of the historic town, four of the seven churches survived.
Rostock has a local beer, as many German villages do, so it wasn't terribly surprising that we were led into the historic brewery for Rostocker beer, which is a pilsner style -- not one of Rick's favorites, but the Rostocker beer was a better-than-most example of the style. I'm not a beer person (good thing, as celiacs can't drink it).
After that, we took a tour of downtown Rostock, wandered around the edges of the University (which doesn't have a traditional campus per se, but instead has a number of buildings around the town), and then into the nunnery and one of the Lutheran cathedrals. The cathedral had previously been a Catholic cathedral, dating from before 1472, and was not as plain or austere as Lutheran churches tend to be. It had a fabulous astronomical clock dating from 1472, which is easily the treasure of Rostock.
The central square had some fabulous buildings, many in what I think of as a Dutch style. At the end of one of the streets adjacent to a park, there's a huge fountain, officially called The Fountain of Joy (though in German, of course). The locals call it "The Porno Fountain" because of the nudes. I've got some great photos of that fountain.
After our tour ended,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rinolj and almelina went back into Warnemünde to see the town. As there are a lot of ferries in the town, there were a lot of people, mostly German, wandering around. When they came back, Rick and I ventured back into town because he'd found free internet in a Mexican restaurant.
I must confess that I don't expect much of Mexican restaurants out of the southwest or Mexico; this one served beef stroganoff burritos, for example. I had tacos, and they were quite good. The sauce was a bit stroganoff-y, but the guacamole was pretty authentic. Overall, I'd give it a B+ for the food, and an A overall because of the free internet.
We took a tour to Rostock, which was heavily bombed during WW2 as it was the source of much of Germany's airplane and ship building. Despite the annihilation of most of the historic town, four of the seven churches survived.
Rostock has a local beer, as many German villages do, so it wasn't terribly surprising that we were led into the historic brewery for Rostocker beer, which is a pilsner style -- not one of Rick's favorites, but the Rostocker beer was a better-than-most example of the style. I'm not a beer person (good thing, as celiacs can't drink it).
After that, we took a tour of downtown Rostock, wandered around the edges of the University (which doesn't have a traditional campus per se, but instead has a number of buildings around the town), and then into the nunnery and one of the Lutheran cathedrals. The cathedral had previously been a Catholic cathedral, dating from before 1472, and was not as plain or austere as Lutheran churches tend to be. It had a fabulous astronomical clock dating from 1472, which is easily the treasure of Rostock.
The central square had some fabulous buildings, many in what I think of as a Dutch style. At the end of one of the streets adjacent to a park, there's a huge fountain, officially called The Fountain of Joy (though in German, of course). The locals call it "The Porno Fountain" because of the nudes. I've got some great photos of that fountain.
After our tour ended,
rinolj and almelina went back into Warnemünde to see the town. As there are a lot of ferries in the town, there were a lot of people, mostly German, wandering around. When they came back, Rick and I ventured back into town because he'd found free internet in a Mexican restaurant.I must confess that I don't expect much of Mexican restaurants out of the southwest or Mexico; this one served beef stroganoff burritos, for example. I had tacos, and they were quite good. The sauce was a bit stroganoff-y, but the guacamole was pretty authentic. Overall, I'd give it a B+ for the food, and an A overall because of the free internet.