Water, water, everywhere

So it was that Anne and I spent the next couple of days on the island of Ruegen.

I was definitely not a happy fellow at the beginning - I had a best first impression, with the horror ride there, getting lost, badly signed bile paths, traffic jams, overfilled towns. To make things worse, our accommodation was - at least it appeared to be at the first - in quite a horrible surroundings. One could not see the sea, in the vicinity was the ferry port of Sassnitz with lots of industry, cranes. Opposite the hotel there was a deserted block building with broken windows.

On the positive side, the place itself was spacious, we had a living room, a bedroom, a kitchenette and a large bathroom. We soon discovered that there were nice beaches in the vicinity (with a view of the port, though). The fact that I did not get a car was a blessing in disguise - there were either lines of cars whizzing by everywhere and in many towns you had to fight with traffic jams. We then successfully tried hitch-hiking (well, on the way there I was picked up by a car with my broken chain) and on top, there was a rather efficient bus system running around the island.

We spent the larger parts of the day at the beach - swimming, reading, relaxing. First we did not know, later we did not care that swimming was actually prohibited while we were there - but then we were on the open beaches without life guards. You see, almost as much as I like biking, I enjoy swimming in open waters, especially if these are wild. I have been in a lot rougher waters before, but some waves were nothing but gentle. I remember trying to swim out to the sea, but that was not possible, as the waves were like a big wall, preventing me from going further out. And the whole time we were whirled up and down two meters high or so. We were both very happy - the sad fact is that a number of less fortunate others were either not as careful or simply not good swimmers - the local papers were full of reports of drownings. A couple of times we saw the helicopters of the emergency crews fly overhead.

While our radius was somewhat limited, we visited two sites of natural interest - a large bed of pebbles and then Koenigsstuhl, the smallest national park of Germany; boasting a number of chalk cliffs. Anne was great, she volunteered for the steep descent to the beach on the wooden steps (some 120 meters) down to the beach, where we were the only ones to take a plunge - not only were the waves huge, you had to watch out for the large rocks. We survived it without any issues. On another day we went to Binz, where we dined at an excellent restaurant close to the beach, in a beach chair, or "Strandkorb", so typical for the Baltic Sea.