Sunday, September 28, 2014

Give me Water!

We are completely landlocked. The Black Forest couldn't be further away from any ocean, be it the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea or the Baltic Sea... every ocean is a day's ride away.

Sometimes a lake or a river will do to satisfy the need of a water view, but every now an then there comes the time when Sonja's Northern soul cries for salt water, and with a week of vacation left, the man was happy to oblige.


Nine hours and 1,000 kms (620 mls) later we had arrived at Stralsund, located in Northeast Germany, in the region of Western Pomerania, in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, close to the Polish Border, opposite from Denmark, at the Strela-Sund (Strela Inlet), which opens into the Baltic Sea.


Stralsund is a founding city of the former Hanseatic League. It was founded in the year 1234, but settlers had been living here long before it was given formal city rights. The town had a lively history, and was under Slavic and Scandinavian control in the Middle Ages, Napoleon's army was here, and after WWII it belonged to the German Democratic Republic before Germany's reunification in 1990. Luckily some of the historic architecture survived and in 2002 the city was honoured with the title of a UNESCO World Heritage.

Here is a walk though the old town core of Stralsund:

Strela Sund - Strela Inlet
Gorch Fock
Bridge to RĂ¼gen Island

11 comments:

  1. oh lovely!!! When I was a child we have been to Stralsund very often. I've had relatives over in Greifswald, another town nearby. One year when we visited Stralsund in the 1980s they had a real plague of ladybugs; everything was covered in ladybugs, unbelievable and never seen since then.

    Enjoy your stay.

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    1. Hi Yvonne, it was our first time traveling for private reasons. We had been visiting the area for business a couple of times before in 1997, that's all. No plague here except tourists, but they are limited due to the time of the year ;-)

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  2. Here I am the prairie person and your watery scenes made me wince. Yes, yes I do miss being around water. And boats. What photo software are you running? Beautiful light work in a couple of those shots.

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    1. Martha, some of the pictures just turn out that way, others are mildly manufactured. I use Picasa and Snapseed on occasion. Being around water seems to be a necessity in my life, I never missed it as much as I do now living in the Black Forest. As pretty as it is, there is not enough water for me ;-)

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  3. Beautiful! I hope you enjoy your week away near the ocean!

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    1. Thanks Dar. Give me an ocean and I will be in Zen.

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  4. Such beautiful old building in those pictures. Glad you got your water fix.

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    1. Thanks, Brandy. You cannot imagine how difficult life without ocean can be. I miss it dearly but alas, not much work here, so traveling to find one on occasion has to suffice for now.

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  5. and i assume you liked it as much as i did :-) what a lovely city!

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    1. You betcha, Petra. What's not to like about the area...

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  6. I don't know if you made it to Longbeach on the west coast of Vancouver Island when you were here. Now THAT'S a beach!!!!!! I can remember swimming at Parksville on the east coast when I was a kid. The tide goes way out and in the summer the sand gets very hot and the tide comes in very quickly. Wonderful warm ocean. A great place to be a kid.

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