At
the end of a long, hot summer, we were off to middle Europe. As is
usual with our holiday plans, 'scope creep' led us from an initial
few days in Berlin for the European athletics championships in
Berlin, into a royal progress overland northwards by train, ferry and
car to the northenmost point of Denmark.
We
have always had a fondness for Berlin, going way back to partition
days, and today it’s a comfortable, prosperous city. Now it’s
knitted back together, but still the scars of the Wall are visible
here and there. As we walked the streets, memories of the cold war
scenes we saw in the early 80s played like a faded black and white
movie superimposed on this shiny new city.
Scars
too of earlier conflict: the plaques on the streets showing where
people were dragged away to oblivion; the rubble site of Gestapo HQ,
the old Soviet war memorial … But for all that, Berlin today is a
buzzing, lively and very green city. We hit the tail end of Europe's
long hot summer there, but temperatures started to fall away after
the first day.
But
the feeling soon passed. Wandering through the Tiergarten and the
city's spacious boulevards and squares – filled with leisurely
families on bikes, groups enjoying a beer in shady pavement cafes,
and lovers just taking in the sun – all seemed right with this
city.
We
also went to the Konzerthaus for a performance and a fine hall it is:
its gorgeous interior has been beautifully reconstructed since
reunification, like many a building here. And we walked for miles,
through areas rich and poor – along the canal and to
Charlottenburg, and to Kreuzberg, and the museum district. I was
reading Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood, and many
familiar streets and names provided another layer of history to
overlay the present.
Next,
we followed Christopher and went north, passing close to the Polish
border, through an endless vista of flat arable land. Each village
has neat red and white gabled houses, a couple of abandoned factories
by the station, an area of allotments filled with ramshackle dachas,
a water tower, a steepled church and a wind farm. Proceeding by
smaller and smaller, more and more local trains we finally reached
our destination: Ruegen Island. Isherwood stayed here in the early
30s, and his description of Sellin, “almost entirely of
boarding-houses, in various styles of seaside architecture – sham
Moorish, old Bavarian, Taj Mahal, and the rococo doll's house, with
white fretwork balconies” is just as true today. The woods are
still there, too, and we had a lovely walk through
pine trees and beech hangers, from Binz, where we were staying. We
even encountered the “little train” that took Otto back to
Berlin, a narrow gauge steam train that still threads its way through
the woods.
Both
resorts are surprisingly calm and upmarket. Binz has a long, carless
promenade and an established clientele. The resorts here front the
gentle arc of sandy beaches facing the “tepid shallow Baltic” of
the Ostsee, where people came for a sea-bathing cure. There is a
fine Kurhaus and many villas from the turn of the 19th
century. We saw a surprising number of grandparents with young
children: we speculated that this was a favoured spot for the East
Berlin elite in the soviet era. Just out of town is an extraordinary
4.5km long hulk, Prora, built in the 1930s as holiday apartments for
workers, but never completed due to the war. It just goes on and on:
the nearer end is now being modernised, though the grounds are still
almost derelict. We couldn't imagine who would want to live there.
Continuing
our northward journey we took the ferry to Trelleborg in Sweden, and
then to Malmö, where we
found ourselves in the middle of a huge street festival, the squares
filled with stages, loud music and fast food stalls: quite a shock
after the peaceful days on Ruegen Island. But we immediately moved
on, crossing The Bridge (no dead bodies spotted!) to København
and our train further north: a very comfortable, spacious train (and
cheap) sped us across Denmark's islands and up the Jutland
peninsular.
Aarhus
is a big (by Danish standards) port city, and still very active, with
an attractive centre. There is a brick cathedral, part romanesque,
part gothic, with a huge tower, and a school that has operated
continuously since at least 1195. Aarhus also has perhaps the most
amazing modern public library anywhere, Dokk 1, by the harbour. We stayed a
bit out of town in a classic 60s Nordic brick modernist hotel across
the bay. Unfortunately, the management have filled it with
bog-standard hotel furniture, ghastly carpets and crude paintings of
pirates rather than mid-century classics. But it was still great to
sit on the terrace watching the evenings draw in; the food was
excellent (the Danes are particularly good at breakfasts); and there
were lovely walks through the woods and along the beaches nearby.
Next day we drove out to the
gently rolling countryside of Mols
Bjerge National Park and to Ebeltoft,
a very pretty little fishing village of
single storey half-timber houses with hollyhocks round the door.
Later we were joined by Marc and Nigel, who joined us for the final
part of the trip. We undertook our final northward stage, by car to
the farthest point of Jutland, where we were to stay for a week in
Skagen.
Pictures here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/keithuk/albums/
