The backstory doesn’t look encouraging. A river port city, former stronghold of the Hanseatic League, whose shipbuilding and aircraft industry in World War II made it a priority target for Allied bombs. A city that hosted a Stasi (secret police) headquarters in GDR days and which suffers from depopulation today, following the exodus of 60,000 people after the Wall came down. But despite all that, Rostock is a cheerful surprise.

It’s a cobbled, eminently walkable place that still has a large part of its ancient city wall. It is connected to a seaside resort – Warnemunde – with a frequent, easy-use train connection. And its massive brick cathedral St Mary’s, which was started back in the 13th century, has two astonishing features.

After the devastation of World War II, the GDR rebuilt much of the city centre, some of it in uncompromisingly socialist style, particularly along the showpiece boulevard Lange Strasse. But along the parallel main pedestrianised shopping street, Kröpeliner Strasse, restoration was done sensitively, respecting bits of medieval brick gothic, baroque and more recent neo-Renaissance facades, particularly of the university building on Universitätsplatz.

The GDR also added a lot of statues and fountains, including what locals call the ‘porno fountain’ (official name the ‘fountain of joy’) also on Universitätsplatz, which along with Neuer Markt is the focus of city life. The fountain is an exuberant collection of figures, both human and animal, in various vigorous poses, including a wild boar doing situps. Its humans are naked, which inspired the nickname, but then so are huge numbers of naked statues all around the world, so to pick on this one seems a bit unnecessary. Particularly as it is a very popular cooling off spot for children during the summer months.

Street cafes here often play host to different nationalities. Rostock has ferry services to Denmark and Sweden, and Warnemunde also has a cruiseship port, so you’re likely to hear lots of different languages in town.

At the eastern end of Kröpeliner Strasse is Neuer Markt, still open on one side after the damage of World War II. The square is the location for the Rathaus, a strange combination of original brick gothic architecture peeping out above and behind the pompous pink baroque in front. Much of the surrounding square has been sensitively restored, traffic free apart from the trams, but the middle hosts another fountain, of morose sea gods dominated by a seagull on a high pole. This Möwenbrunnen (‘seagull fountain’) is not popular with locals, and was put here during post-reunification days, at a time when the city most needed something optimistic to look at.

The Cathedral

Back in medieval times this part of Germany was heavily forested, and its mostly sandy soil has little to offer in the way of stone. So six million bricks had to be fired to build St Mary’s, some of them decoratively glazed to create a checkered, even houndstooth, exterior.

At first sight its interior seems fairly sparse. But turn back to look above the entry, and you’ll see the massive decorative wooden organ loft, from 1750. The instrument here, still in use  comprises an astonishing 5,700 organ pipes, and hanging below it is the Duke of Mecklenburg’s glazed-in royal box, a bit like a very fancy basket hanging under a hot air balloon. This is where the Duke would sit to gaze out upon his subjects, and at times, with all that organ power going on, it must have felt like it was taking off.

The other big feature of the cathedral is tucked away behind the nave. This 15th century astronomical clock is just as special as its much more famous cousin in Prague, and what it lacks in moving showtime figurines, it makes up for in complexity, ingenuity and authenticity, because whilst Prague is now electrically powered, the clockwork here is the original, and still needs to be wound up every day.

It is also far more intimate, being mostly right at eye level. Besides telling the time, the date, and having moving apostles every hour, its intricacies detail things like the phase of the moon, the state of the harvest, and the actual timings of sunrise and sunset in Rostock, every day of the year. How it survived the war is something of a miracle.

https://www.hanse.org/en/tourist/rostock

Following the collapse of East Germany’s German Democratic Republic 30 years ago, a number of towns and cities emerged as hitherto undiscovered. Because of their remoter location they were largely undamaged by wartime bombing and their architectural splendour survived the worst of the GDR town planning.

Among such towns are Görlitz, profiled elsewhere on this site, and Schwerin, 20 miles south of Wismar and inland from the Baltic coast.

Once the historic seat of the Dukes of Mecklenburg, Schwerin, with a population just under 100,000, had always played second fiddle to its larger industrial neighbour Rostock, particularly during the days of the GDR. Rostock, as a state-supported shipbuilding city, was much more in keeping with the image the country wanted to present.

However once the reunification of Germany was completed and the Land of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was re-established, the decision was made to restore Schwerin to its rightful place as the state capital. As an endorsement of that decision, the island-based castle and its associated buildings were made a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2024.

Neuschwanstein of the north

The jewel in the architecture of the city, Schwerin castle became the seat of the parliament of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. In the 19^th century the water-surrounded building had been the ducal residence but in 1918, the duchy ceased to exist and the castle became the property of the state.

A castle has stood on the Schwerin island since the latter years of the first millennium. The town was an important location in the medieval quest to extend eastwards along the Baltic coast. Accordingly, those earlier buildings on the island were more militaristic, but in more peaceful and prosperous recent history the emphasis changed.

Accordingly, when the current castle was built in the mid 19^th century by a group of architects including Gottfried Semper (who was responsible for building the Semper Oper in Dresden) they created one of the finest Renaissance buildings in northern Germany. It has been dubbed the Neuschwanstein of the north. In scale and in beauty it is the equal of any Loire Valley chateau, having also been partly modelled on Chambord.

The museum section of the castle can be visited daily all year round (closed Mondays) and there are also guided tours of the parliament section, on request. Alternatively you can wander through the castle gardens, one of the finest gardens to mix baroque with classical English design.

Undoubtedly the best way to appreciate views of the castle is on a trip boat on the Schweriner See, the third largest lake in Germany. These trips run from March until October and start from the pier by the castle, and besides castle views, they reveal a boathouse-dwelling culture that is unique to Mecklenburg.

Schwerin itself is a town of two halves. Close to the castle island, it is a historic and administrative centre, with state government ministries in a variety of imposing baroque and neoclassical buildings.  It has a more modern, shopping and eating quarter nearby, and a lot of its population (still not quite as numerous as in GDR days) are retirees from elsewhere in Germany, attracted by lakeside living in new luxury waterside apartments, and Schwerin’s peace and quiet.

The Grand Hotel Heiligendamm, first built in 1793, quickly became a spa retreat for the aristocracy of central Europe. But it has been a struggle to keep in going in modern times.

The Latin inscription on the pediment above the Tuscan-style columns of the Kurhaus reads Heic Te Laetitia Invitat Post Balnea Sanum. Which loosely translates as ‘joy awaits you as you emerge from your bath’.

A sentiment that is not so original, perhaps, given how many hotels today have spas, but then this is the Grand Hotel Heiligendamm, first established in 1793, which makes it Germany’s oldest and smartest seaside hotel.

The property was first established here, on the Baltic coast a dozen miles west of Rostock, at the instigation of the Duke of Schwerin. Besides the Kurhaus with its classicist facade, it comprises seven historic white mansions, surrounded by beechwoods on either side and with sweeping lawns down to a pier and a sandy beach.

It quickly became patronized by German aristocracy, by literati such as Proust and Rilke, and even by Russia’s Tsar Nicholas I. At its peak in the mid 19^th century it was a meeting place for Europe’s rich and famous, who came to bathe in the Baltic and to gamble at the first horse-racing course in Germany.  But then came two World Wars, the dismal curtain of communism, closure and decay.

Today it is back, and determined to roll back the years.

In truth, the Grand hasn’t had an easy ride even since it re-opened, post-reunification. In two short decades it was transformed from a crumbling ruin to a luxury Kempinski-steered property chosen by Angela Merkel to host 2007’s G8 summit. But despite all the associated publicity, complete with that iconic image of the world leaders in one giant tailor-made strandkorb (basketwork beach chair), it was bankrupt by 2012.

In truth, there were always going to be problems with trying to re-establish an elite beach resort on the Baltic in the era of easy air travel to the Med. Especially with no airport nearby.

Back in the day, the glitterati used to arrive at the Grand on a dedicated steam railway, built specifically to chuff them right to the front door. Today, the Molli, although charming, is more of a curiosity than a method of travel.

Then there’s the issue of retaining quality staff in a relatively remote location. Particularly because Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is the poorest of the German states, where old anti-capitalist attitudes still prevail. Moreover the beach at Heiligendamm is not much to write home about.

When it went bust in 2012, the hotel’s Perlenkette (pearl necklace) of villas had to be sold, and have since been reconstituted as luxury apartments. The remaining core buildings were bought by Paul Morzynski, a tax accountant from Hanover, who is working to re-establish the hotel by concentrating on the spa, the sanctity of the enclave and the quality of the food.

With these things in mind, he has added a spacious outdoor pool and seasonal staff accommodation. Interiors have been refreshed with silk fabrics, marble and brocade. All of it, of course, in the best possible taste.

There are some great long distance cycle routes in Germany. Down the Danube from Donaueschingen to Passau, along the Rhine from castle to castle, up the Elbe from Dresden to the coastal mudflats, or from the Allgäu to the Austrian border along the foothills of the Alps. Take your pick.

But given that the public is keen on novelty, we’d thought we’d profile the newest of the lot in this section, and one of the most interesting, at least from a cultural perspective, because it runs from capital to capital, from Berlin to Copenhagen.

This 630 km itinerary has ingredients that others do not: two big cities, a short sea voyage across the Baltic, three relatively unspoiled regions – Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, East Denmark – and a lot of friendly people, people who respect the bike as a means of travel. Furthermore, although it is cross-country, this is not a route which tackles hills. With much of it on dedicated tarmac cycle track, you should be able to cover the ground relatively quickly.

This itinerary has ingredients that others do not

The route starts just outside Berlin in Hennigsdorf, where it breaks into the serene expanse of the Brandenburg countryside, passing the Dutch-style Oranienburg castle and a couple of sobering former concentration camps, Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück. From here it starts to weave through the thousand-odd lakes and watercourses of the Mecklenburg Lake District, a watery playground whose biggest expanse of water – Müritz – is Germany’s second largest lake.

The cycleway spends a lot of time dawdling around coastlines

From the lakes there’s a mellow stretch of around 130 km of mainly heathland and farmland to cross before reaching the Baltic shore at Rostock, a handsome Hanseatic red brick city with three monumental churches. Although Rostock is itself a port, the ferry actually sails from Warnemünde, a seaside resort with wide sandy beaches, a lighthouse, and a colourful harbour. From here, you could find yourself sharing the three-hour crossing with rail passengers, because this service is one of the few that still provides a roll-on, roll-off facility for trains, swallowing up Copenhagen-bound expresses whole. They’ll barely notice your bike.

Once on the other side, you’ve still got around 250km to go to reach the Danish capital, in a series of circuitous loops that will allow plenty of time to acclimatize to the change in culture. This part of Denmark is all islands and peninsulars, so the cycleway spends a lot of time dawdling around coastlines, going nowhere in particular. If you are in a hurry to get there, you could always put the bike on a train!

Berlin to Copenhagen route description