Rügen is the largest island (almost as big as HK) of Germany on the Baltic coast. During the Communist times it was a resort area for Eastern Germans. After the unification the island has to invest a lot to modernise its facilities in order to attract more tourists from western Germany.
Along the eastern coast of the island there are many sea resorts, the most famous one being Binz, which is often dubbed as the northern Sorrento. Sellin has a long street filled with art noveau style houses and a bridge on the sea.
There are lots to do and see in Rügen, such as hiking, nordic walking, cycling, water sports etc. The sea was definitely one of the biggest attractions, but what lured me more was the chalk cliffs in Jasmund National Park. I wanted to go there mainly because it had been painted by my favourite German painter, Caspar David Friedrich. Königsstuhl is where you can see the cliff most clearly. If you dare to walk down near 500 steps to the waterfront, you will find yourself sandwiched between the powerful Baltic Sea and high, magnificent cliffs. No matter how advanced our technologies are, human beings are still very very small in front of mother nature.
I guess there is no better place to hide yourself in Germany than Hiddensee (as the name speaks for itself if you read it from English perspective), a small island on the northeastern part of Germany situated at the Baltic Sea.
Hiddensee can be reached by ferry (Weiss Flote) from Stralsund, or from Schaprode, a little port on Germany’s largest island Ruegen which is just opposite Hiddensee. There are three stops: Neuendorf, Vitte and Kloster. Neuendorf is on the south, Vitte is the centre of the island and Kloster is on the north with a lighthouse.
The island is small and car-free. A large part of it is a national park. You can hike there or rent a bicycle to go around. From the lighthouse in Kloster you can go down to the tip of island where you will be surrounded by blue Baltic Sea water. It’s not just the tip of the island, it’s also tip of Germany, and tip of the world. The scenery of the island is not super fabulous, but the tranquility and the stress-free environment is definitely the gem there.
Lust auf Rückzug? Go to Hiddensee and you will find your peace.
More photos from here.
Published on 4 April 2007
in Books.
Following the huge success of Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code”, several other “similar” history-cum-code-deciphering fictions appeared in the market. Among those more interesting ones are “The Rule of Four” by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason, and “The Dante Club” by Matthew Pearl.
“The Rule of Four” was about a one-night adventure of 4 Princeton students when one of them was about to decode the secrets of a mysterious Renaissance book called Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Critics exclaimed that “it is better than Da Vinci Code”. I wouldn’t go as far as that. The adventures were thrilling from time to time, but the plot was easy to guess. The subject book and its topic (about a secret hiding place for Renaissance art treasures) was much less controversial than the Bible and Jesus’ “wife”. And since the book was written by fresh graduates, the style was somewhat immature.
“The Dante Club” was set in mid 19th century in New York when a few professors who formed a study club for Dante found that a series of murders were modelled like what Dante described in Hell in Divine Comedy. They started investigating the crimes and their lives were at risks when they slowly unveiled the true identity of the murderer. Dante is one of my favourite writers and I have read Divine Comedy long long time ago, and so I could associate more with what was being told in the book. The plot was wittier and more complex than “The Rule of Four” and so it was more interesting to me.
The common problem for these type of “da vinci code” fictions is that, the authors have to spend a lot of time on research for the details of the subject book or matter in order to make the whole thing convincing, and the plots, or the suspense element, become relatively weak. Perhaps I am just too demanding, but it would be great if there’s a Dan Brown + Stephen King / PD James.
Along the eastern coast of the island there are many sea resorts, the most famous one being Binz, which is often dubbed as the northern Sorrento. Sellin has a long street filled with art noveau style houses and a bridge on the sea.
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