Saturday May 12- We had a twelve hour stop in Rostock, Germany. The cruise ship was charging $25 Canadian per person for a shuttle into town. However when we spoke to the port security guard he told us there was a local bus around the corner. A day pass for this bus was $9 Canadian.
Since Graham speaks German we assumed after his conversation with the bus driver that he was checking that we were getting on the correct bus. Actually, Graham hadn’t checked with the driver (he was probably discussing the local price of eggs and milk for all I know) and we followed him onto the bus. After several stops John figured out we were on the correct bus but going in the wrong direction.
We got off at the next stop, walked a bit, took some pictures of the bright yellow fields of rapeseed plants, returned and waited for the bus going in the correct direction.
We arrived fairly quickly at Lütten Klein train station and took the train into the Rostock HBF main station. We could have transferred to the streetcar but we walked for about ten minutes to the old town.
The town was very pretty with its old buildings, pedestrian walkway, beautiful university and St Mary’s Cathedral. The cathedral had an intricate clock from the 1400s.
We stopped for some beers at the Rathaus Square before catching a streetcar and train to the beach town of Warnemünde.
This town was much better than its write up. There were other cruise ships in this port. We crossed a busy pedestrian bridge filled with people and numerous street performers.
We immediately strolled down the restaurant lined harbour canal before arriving at the beach.
The beach was packed with Germans enjoying the sunny spring day. There was a huge area where many different games of beach volleyball was going on. People were flying drones and many sailboats were in the water. Most dramatic was an area filled with kites. There were some incredibly large ones including an enormous ghost whose limbs moved in a lifelike fashion. It reminded me of a dementor from Harry Potter. There was also a large stingray and a couple witches that rode the air currents on their brooms. It was mesmerizing to watch.
After walking along the beach boardwalk, we explored the town, relaxed at a waterside biergarten. I loved the women’s washroom, it had a glittery gold toilet seat and attractive artwork.
We caught the train and bus back to the ship at made it back in time for our 6:15pm supper, trivia time and the ABBA tribute band show.