By Oliver Ohmann
What does a city kid like me know about Stralsund? On the Baltic Sea, up in Meckpomm, the old Hanseatic city, just before Rügen.
Just go there at the weekend. 280 kilometers, not quite three hours, small fish.
Since it’s Saturday, you can park the car for free on the edge of the old town. Then in. First impression: trace of the bricks. The mighty three steeples of St. Nikolai, St. Marien and St. Jakobi are impressive.
In fact, Stralsund has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2002 and is famous for its brick Gothic architecture. Important Hanseatic cities were very rich and the “peppersacks” also showed that.
The old town hall is a wonderful example. Created in the 13th century. In Berlin they were still building stone churches and living in wooden houses. The town hall of Stralsund was already a shopping center in the Middle Ages.
The old Hanseatic city of Stralsund is famous for its brick Gothic buildings Photo: Oliver Ohmann
You walk through the middle as if you were walking through a shopping arcade. You can go shopping and feasting in Stralsund anyway. But now I finally want to go to the water.
A lot is still being renovated and built at the port. The “Ozeaneum” is the modern tourist magnet there. You can find out everything about the seas and their inhabitants in an exciting way (admission 17 euros).
But something else catches my eye. A three-master moored in the harbor.
“The Squatting” was erected in 1986 on the beautiful Sound Promenade
Photo: Oliver Ohmann
am I reading correctly? Is that really the “Gorch Fock”? Indeed, the name is on the ship.
I board the celebrity (admission 6 euros) and learn the whole story. In 1933 the sail training ship was launched. She scuttled herself in the war, raised again after 1945 and confiscated by the Russians.
From 1951 she sailed the seven seas as “Towarishtsch” (comrade). From 1990 to 1997 then under the Ukrainian flag, home port of Cherson. In 2003 the barque came to Stralsund and was restored. To distinguish it from the German Navy’s equally famous sail training ship (built in 1958), it now bears the name “Gorch Fock I”.
The BZ AM SONNTAG reporter dangled in a hammock on the “Gorch Fock” Photo: Oliver Ohmann
If you still want to hire, you have to be quick. From the end of March until the end of 2023 we will go to the shipyard for a beauty treatment.
I’m doing what I always do when I’m in a Baltic Sea port. Eat Bismarck rolls. In Stralsund you go to the Backfischkönig on the “Ocean II”, a fiver for the fish snack on hand. Really delicious!
Already in the afternoon I brush the sails again and drive back to Berlin. But you can also stay longer. I’ve seen apartments from 40 euros. Stralsund is not an expensive place.
With “sea” time, it would of course also go over to Rügen (over the bridge) or up into the nearby Bodden landscape. I hereby announce: I like Stralsund!