Friday, July 2 , Warnemünde, Germany

At 4:15 a.m. we could dimly see Warnemünde with our big binoculars. And, we could see Warnemünde in sunlight! Since we were wide awake, and we were approaching a new port and a new country, we decided to get dressed, take cameras and binocs and head for the tippy top of the ship--the Observation Deck. But, the ship designers have made it very difficult to take pictures from these observation points--inside the Crow's Nest and out on this deck, they have smoked glass walls or high wind screens on almost all the vantage points. We finally worked our way around to the rear of the ship, the only place without the smoked glass problem, and from there, we enjoyed the early morning light and views of another busy port--Warnemünde.

In addition to the usual sights of a port, there was a huge cooling tower with white steam clouds above it. I thought "nuclear power plant" but Glenn said, "No, coal-fired power plant"--he could see the coal silos. We also saw a couple small clusters of the huge windmills that were so prevalent throughout northern Germany last May.

The channel narrowed, as we left the Baltic Sea and entered the mouth of the Warnow (pronounce that with a "V" at the beginning, please) River. Just before that power plant, the river widened out into a little bay and the Westerdam's pilot now had the ship make that 180-degree maneuver which it did when leaving Copenhagen. Apparently the captain shares Glenn's philosophy of always turning your mode of transportation around so you will have an easy exit. With this revolving, our cabin ended up on the side away from the dock, when the ship finally came to rest at its pier. But, we had that lovely sunshine pouring into our room from the east--boy, did it feel great!

That sunshine was greatly encouraging and we were optimistic that our tour of nearby Rostock would take place under sunny skies. Probably all those leaving the ship for their long trip to Berlin also were hoping for good weather. The ship would spend a long day in this port--to accommodate those who took the very expensive excursions ($150 - $300) to Berlin. We didn't leave Warnemünde until after ten p.m.

Before coming on this cruise, I saw that there would be excursions from the ship into Rostock, the largest city in Mecklenburg. The German von Pressentin family historian reminded me that some of our ancestors had figured in the history of Rostock. I already knew that my great-grandfather, Karl von Pressentin, had attended school in Rostock--whether he was at the University of Rostock or at a "gymnasium" (like our high school) I could not determine. [Later, the von Pressentin family historian in Hamburg, Germany assured me that Karl had been at the University of Rostock.]

I copied off all the information I could find in the von Pressentin family histories about General Otto Bernhard von Pressentin, (1739-1825) who was first the Commandant of the Mecklenburg detachment in Rostock, and later appointed as Governor of the city when he was beyond the age to lead men into battle. I even found the name of the street in Rostock where General Otto, his wife and family lived. Later the General and his wife bought an estate, "Gross-Kussewitz" near Rostock. There was also a sad postscript to General Otto's governorship of Rostock, when he was tricked into letting some of Major von Schill's rebellious troops enter the city. While he was later pardoned by the Duke of Mecklenburg, the old gentleman never recovered from this embarrassment. Still, the family history says that he lived on, celebrated his golden wedding anniversary with his wife, and died at the ripe old age of 85 at his family estate.

Looking at a detailed map of the Rostock area, I also found a street named "Pressentin Strasse" which ran through a small community bordering the Warnow River. Armed with all this history, I was eager to take the excursion entitled, "Rostock Revealed," which included a walking tour around the city and a one-hour harbor cruise from Rostock back to Warnemünde.

The Rostock tour got an early start: we assembled at 8:15 a.m. and by 8:30 we were down on the dock, being greeted by "Cornelia" the young woman who was our guide for the morning. Apparently the order of our tour was reversed--we had the river cruise into Rostock first and returned from Rostock by bus. So, we walked a short distance over to the tour boat and climbed aboard. With all the sunshine, we opted to sit out on the open top deck where we would have unobstructed views.

It took about an hour to sail up the Warnow River, and all along the way we had nice views of the port and all the activity along the river banks. I asked Cornelia to point out the general area where Pressentin Strasse would be located and she told me it would be near a little marina in "Gehlsdorf." Cornelia pointed out a huge building that had been used for shipbuilding in the GDR era--no new contracts at present. Today, it is shipping, tourism and private sailboats that keep Warnemünde busy. Major sailing races are held out on the Baltic, just outside of Warnemünde. Near Rostock, people have made good use out of a couple old ships, now permanently docked at the river's edge--one is used for musical theater and the other is a youth hostel.

One of the features of our boat ride was to be champagne and some local "fish snacks." I had envisioned sipping the champagne on the way back from Rostock, about lunch time, but no--at 8:45 a.m., here came the waitress with champagne and some kippered salmon on crackers. Oh well....when in Rome, or Rostock...drink up!

By the time the ship pulled up to the dock in Rostock our sunny day had disappeared! Gray clouds now covered the sky. Rats! We had been lulled by the early-morning sunshine into leaving the umbrella in the cabin. By now, you would think we would have learned to never leave the ship without that umbrella!

As we trooped up the main street leading into Rostock from the river, sure enough, here came the rain drops. We noticed some very interesting water "art" bordering the street. Sort of a series of tiny waterfalls and little channels for the water. On a warm summer day, I could imagine lots of little Rostockian feet would be paddling about in that shallow streamlet.

By the time we reached the main shopping area it was seriously raining. Cornelia huddled the group together under a department store's wide overhang and said she was going inside to buy an umbrella and invited others to join her. We had our hooded jackets and decided to NOT buy yet another umbrella. Instead we enjoyed the pretty display of flowers on sale in front of the store, and saw the first of several cute little strawberry-shaped fruit stands. It is "erd-berry" (literally, "ground berry") or strawberry season in northern Germany. The berries were huge--and smelled, oh so good. It was hard to resist buying a box, but we did.

Coming back armed with her umbrella, Cornelia set off again, and when I looked up at the street sign, I saw that we were walking right down "Breite Strasse" where General Otto once lived! Today, it is a pedestrian-only street, and quite short--just a couple blocks long. General Otto's house and all the other private residences must have disappeared a long time ago--today it is all shops and restaurants. There was a McDonald's restaurant on one side of the street, and a Burger King on the other--perhaps one of them replaced General Otto's house?

Apparently our guide knew how to get the weather to improve. Almost as soon as she put up her new umbrella--it stopped raining, and the sun came out!

Cornelia pointed out that Rostock was hard-hit by Allied bombing in WWII, being bombed 3 times, twice early in the war, and once near the end. It was home to the Heinkel aircraft plants, so was a prime target. Like all the other German cities, Rostock had to be pretty much rebuilt from the ground up after WWII. In other German cities we've visited, they made a total reconstruction of their "old towns" but in Rostock they only recreated the exterior facades--when we walked through the very old-looking entrance of the Marriott Hotel and Shopping Center we found ourselves suddenly in a very modern shopping mall! Escalators whisking shoppers to the upper level, big skylights overhead, all could have come right out of our Salem downtown mall.

We made a circuit through the main shopping part of Rostock, and then by the University whose claim to fame is that it is the oldest in Europe. Being founded in the year 1419 certainly made it sound very old to me! I took lots of pictures of the main University building, just in case it turns out to be where my great-grandfather once studied. I also snapped pictures of what Cornelia said would have been the Governor's House, in the days of General Otto.

We walked past the University and encountered a picturesque row of low buildings, looking like they belonged in another century, and indeed, they did. They were near a church and once housed a Catholic convent. After the Reformation, the buildings were turned into apartments for the unwed spinsters from the noble families. Exactly like what Karen and I saw in Dobbertin, to the west and south of Rostock. Except Dobbertin was a MUCH bigger operation and once was a MUCH wealthier Abbey. The guide told us just what we knew from the von Pressentin histories: The nobles registered their baby girls at one of several "domiciles" at their birth. If circumstances were such that they did not marry, they could move into these apartments with their own servants and carriages and enjoy a quiet but luxurious life. The noble wives who were busy bearing upwards of ten children must have been a bit envious of the spinsters! Beyond the former domiciliary, we could see a portion of the thick wall that once surrounded Rostock, and every other medieval town. We climbed some stairs that led us up and over the wall, and on the other side was a long grassy area paralleling the wall. Cornelia said this was once the moat, long ago filled in. Beyond the wall and grass I could look down into a little wooded canyon--apparently this is a park almost within Rostock.

We had a pleasant walk along the outside of the wall until we came to the one of the four remaining medieval town gates--and yes! it was Kröpeliner Gate--the one from which General Otto looked out and thought he saw thousands of soldiers when in reality there were only a few hundred. This is a very TALL gate, added onto over the centuries, and a city museum now fills in what would once have been the opening at its base where people passed in or out of the city. Too bad there wasn't an opportunity to see what they had displayed inside. I wonder if the museum staff would have known anything about General Otto Bernard von Pressentin, Governor of Rostock in the early 1800s??

After our circuit, we had time to use the bathroom in the Marriott Center, listen to a Cossack (!!) choir entertaining in the main street and get a little education from Cornelia about the various architectural styles--all represented in three adjoining buildings on the main street. The 1600's, 1800's and early 20th century facades did indeed clearly show the evolution of German architecture.

Some other "colorful" characters came loping down the street--some of Rostock's "skinheads." Among its other claims to fame, Rostock has made the news more than once with accounts of the skinheads who seem to be centered in this city, and often are involved with racial attacks, neo-Nazism, etc. These guys were well-pierced with various metallic objects all over their faces and heads, and had the mean-looking haircuts to go with the metal--partly shaved heads, some with what we once called a "Mohawk" cut. They came up to our tour group and started to say something, probably unpleasant, but Cornelia had a quick and quiet dialog with them, and they gave up and left.

My overall impression of Rostock: a very pleasant city, very clean (natürlich!), with lovely parks, colorful buildings, flowers and some very inventive fountains scattered throughout the city.

We finished up our tour of Rostock with a visit to their famous church, the "Marienkirche" dating from the 12th century. Cornelia was careful to get us to the church on time....to witness the parade of the Apostles at high noon. The church has an amazing "astronomical" clock underneath the high mantle where the Apostles appear. The clock is a giant calculator, with many years represented on concentric circles, plus other strange figures--apparently with some study, you can easily calculate the day on which any given date occurred, and also learn the best time to plant your crops, etc. When the first "bong" rang out for high noon, Glenn held his digital camera high above the other tourists and got some close-up shots of the Apostles bowing to Jesus, then going out through a little door--all except Judas, that is! He got left outside the door. A churchly snub. After the clock finished performing, we all sat down in the church pews and were treated to a nice little organ concert, followed by a short service--which I think included a brief sermon, all in German of course. About all I could understand was the Lord's Prayer. That seems to be universal. Unlike that huge pipe organ we listened to in Regensburg, Germany three years ago, this one did NOT cause the walls to tremble!

After the visit to the church, it was time to board our bus for a drive back along a very snazzy "autobahn" through modern Rostock's suburbs and into Warnemünde. Cornelia pointed out some of the older apartment houses, built back in the 1930's and now very prized. We also saw some of the big apartment blocks built during the GDR era. But even those were nowhere near as dreary-looking as those in St. Petersburg. All had been nicely painted and refurbished.

One thing that was as noticeable here as it was during my tour of Germany last year--the graffiti. Some guides tried to imply that it is "artistic" but to my eyes, it is just an eyesore on otherwise good-looking buildings. With the German instinct for neatness, I'm really surprised painting graffiti is not a capital crime in this country!

On the way back, Cornelia gave us a summary of her very interesting background: her ancestors emigrated to Lithuania from southwestern Germany in the 1600's and only returned to Germany during WWII when the Russians forced them out of Lithuania. She, herself, was in college here in Rostock at the time the Berlin Wall came down. Later, she came to the USA and studied at a small college in Decorah, Iowa. From there, she went on to Rutgers University in New Jersey where she got her Masters. Now, she "almost" has her doctorate in German literature. Presently, she is teaching at a German-English school in Mexico City. She had just flown in from Mexico a couple days ago--this is her summer vacation job and chance to visit her family. Cornelia gave a very balanced, and I thought astute evaluation of life under Communist rule and now, as part of reunified Germany. It also was similar in tone to what the people in Wessin, Mecklenburg told us last year. Yes, there was little privacy--she herself later got to see the records that had been kept on her--and she had done nothing but be an outstanding student. Yes, they could not easily leave East Germany, but then again, they had little reason to do so. Yes, reunification was good, but the old GDR wasn't all that bad, either.

What was so remarkable about Cornelia was that she speaks English exactly as any ol' American would. She has all the idioms down pat--not only was she a very smart lady, but it was easy to understand her, and I'm sure we got more information out of this tour because of this.

We were back on the ship a little after 1 p.m. Had a Lido buffet lunch, and then a little lay-down. My whole right leg is really complaining about all the walking and stair-climbing it's been subjected to.

After an hour, we walked into little Warnemünde, only a ten-minute walk from the ship. We had two objectives: buy some postcards, and find an Internet cafe. My only real gain from the ship's casino has been that twice I have picked up Euros off the carpet! First, I gleaned a E2.50, then another day, I found a little E.50 on the floor. Warnemünde is probably our last chance to use them--Denmark is part of the EU, but still uses the kröne and Norway has not gone along with joining the European Union.

The sunny interlude was over by the time we headed into Warnemünde, but we were armed with an umbrella and these were just intermittent showers. The postcards were no problem; we found a little souvenir shop near the waterfront and bought two, at about E.30 each--but ah, that elusive Internet cafe! Finally, after carefully following instructions, we located it, down a side street. It was not a cafe, but a small book store, with one computer terminal tucked in the corner. We asked the proprietress if she would take US dollars to use the Internet--nope. So, we held out the remnants of my found Euros and asked her, "how much time will this buy?" "About ten minutes." That formidable German computer keyboard again! But now that I had practiced a couple times in other cities, I managed to send the following brief message to Karen, asking that she forward it to others. At least, they would know we were still alive.

"July 2, From Rostock
Hi we have about 5 minutes to tell zou we are fine, enjozed Rostock a lot, found <pressentin sites, probablz last e mail until england. please send to mark, bettz, terrz. love, mom and dad"

After successfully (sort of) communicating via cyberspace, we took a leisurely stroll around the main square of the town--which was mostly occupied by a big church. A pleasant little place, not overly touristy, and there were nice touches such as the organ grinder man on one street corner.

The ship's dining room was a lonely place at dinner. We were almost by ourselves! No one at the adjoining table (we learned later that Tom and Barbara from Colorado had given up on continuing the cruise and flown back home today, while Bob and Elsie opted to eat at the German Biergarten, set up on the Lido around the pool. And of course, there were all those still enroute back to the ship from Berlin.

After dinner, I just relaxed in our room, nursing my sore leg. Glenn went up and took a look at the German festivities, but when he found out they would charge him the usual high price for a beer, and no oompah band was to be seen or heard, he didn't spend much time there.

That was the end of our day in Rostock. For me, a very fulfilling day, since I got to see a lot of the places where my von Pressentin ancestors once lived.

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Trip Log, Warnemünde and Rostock

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