From Swinoujscie; Usedom island

Swinoujscie is the southern-most place on Usedom island, and the rest of the island is in Germany. Nowadays, the island is pretty much dedicated to tourism, both in Swinoujscie and in the rest. The Polish part has very much got Polish-style seaside activities. On the German side it seemed to us somewhat quieter. Well, I have commented on how good people in Poland are at “seaside”. Maybe no further comment on this one.

We left Swinoujscie about midday. We found a canteen-style eatery on the Polish side and had an ample lunch, notable to me for the larger amount of really well prepared potatoes. Then into Germany, across a thinly disguised frontier. After a bit of “on the wrong road” we got to Heringsdorf. This place was chosen by Kaiser Wilhelm II as his chosen seaside place, rather like George IV and Brighton in England. It is smaller and does have a feeling of class. But what we noticed as cyclists was how many people were sedately riding bikes up and down the promenade. Going along the coast the number of cyclists continued unabated until the cycle route suddenly took to the woods and to noticeable gradients. Where there were all these cyclists, there was a noticeable absence of other seaside entertainment.

Anyway, into the woods and up and down. Familiar enough from the Baltic coast in general. At one stage, we came to what seemed a continuous camp-site by the road – on and on for ages! We also came to a place where the cycle way turned into stairs, with ramps to push up you bike. With our luggage, this was not an option, but there was an alternative route next to a main road. Eventually, we got to a place called Karlshagen and a camp-site in a field next to and belonging to a gastropub, where we had a nice meal as well.

The next day, we cycled to Peenemunde, which is at the North end of Usedom and was a large research site in WW II. It is the birthplace of rocket science, since it was here that what became the V2 rocket was developed, pretty well from first principles. They also develped the V1, but there was less about that. Most of the military/research facility has gone now, but enough buildings remain for an interesting museum. The largest of these was a large power station, which was “state of the art” at the time, with things like exhaust gas scrubbers to remove sulphur in the gasses. It continued as a power station after the war. Electricity was needed on a large scale for the rocketry, for making liquid oxygen. There was also a nice bit about the large quantity of potatoes needed to make the methonal! The rest of the museum was rich on the history of the institution and a lot about the human side of it all, but surprisingly weak on the technical side of how the rockets were developed and how they work.

After the museum, we took a ferry across from the island, and the next bit is the subject of another blog, to come.