From Juliusruhe to Baabe
Monday 20 July
The first lap today goes along a brand new cyclepath running alongside,
but at a small distance from the road which is a real pleasure. It does
not last all the way to Sassnitz, but we go by small, not too busy roads,
bypassing the very popular tourist site at Kaiserstuhl, a section of the
chalk cliffs of Rügen. The last bit of the way to Sassnitz, we find
a cyclepath, part good, part very bad, that bypasses Sassnitz, where we
have no business, and ends at Neu Mukran, the impressive new harbour built
to accomodate transport to and from Scandinavia. At Mukran we meet a Sassnitz
family of three, out for the day on their bikes. They show us a cyclepath
to Binz which goes past a fantastic complex of buildings which stretches
for 4,5 kms along the coast at Prora. It was originally conceived by the
Nazis as a "Kraft durch Freude" holiday centre for 20.000 people. The second
World War put a stop to the project which would be taken up again when
"final victory was won". So, the original concept was never finished, and
after the war the buildings were completed to serve as quarters for the
Nationale Volks Armé, the East German army, and the area became
completely off bounds to the public. A quite amazing memorial to socialist
thinking.Binz, when we get there, is quite different though just as imposing
in its way. An enormous holiday complex has risen here within the last
ten years, our guides tell us. It may not be as grandiose as the Kraft
durch Freude project, but before another ten years have gone by, I'm sure
there will be room for at least as many people as Hitler envisaged in Prora.
Our guides show us to the "Fremdenverkehrbureau" which helps people
to find accomodation. "No rooms at all in Binz", she tells us, except at
the Beaumaris Hotel at 200 DM per person per night. That is too much, we
will try on our own. On our way out of Binz, we pass a private "Zimmervermittlung"
who for a fee of 10 DM finds us a room at a hotel in Baabe further down
the coast. Thinking to avoid the main road, we find a small road through
the Granitz woods which turns out to go up very steeply to a "Jagdschloss",
and down again even more steeply on a very bad path. Much shaken, we reach
Sellin and stay on the coast road from Sellin to Baabe and find our hotel
without further problems. (120 DM). The hotel is very large and seems to
be frequented mostly by elderly people who have arrived in large buses.
(We are elderly too which we tend to forget).
The evening offers a slide lecture on the beauties of Rügen which
are mostly of a pictorial nature, but also includes some lovely bathing
beauties in the nude. We have also found out that the sign "Textilstrand"
means that you must wear bathing suits, and by inference that at a beach
with no sign, you are free to dispense with such.