Today is Jacky and Ken’s 10th wedding anniversary and what a memorable way to spend it, cycling the remote island of Hiddensee
Our final hotel on Rugen was a joy, not as smart as the others, but more than made up for any shortcomings with bags of personality and very little English. Each time we were greeted, it was with a big smile and ‘hello, Englisch peoples!’
It was a leisurely start, our ferry across to Neuendorf wasn’t until 10:30 and only 2km away. Luckily, we allowed plenty of time because there was a puncture. Honestly, we left Ken to his own devices yesterday and he breaks his bike again! He walked his bike to the harbour as John’s multi tool was found not to be multi enough. By the time we reached Schaprode, the multi tool had been disassembled and fixed the problem. Sadly, the weather was grey and drizzly, not a good start to our day. Happily it did get better.
The island of Hiddensee is less than 20km square and traffic free. You may walk, cycle, take a horse and cart or electric bus… unless you are a policeman or doctor. Then you are allowed a motorised vehicle. It is very popular but also remains peaceful. It’s a haven for artists and wildlife, particularly migrating birds.
We cycled the length of the island to Kloster, in the north, and visited a small but extremely informative museum. There are about 1000 inhabitants on the island which, these days, generates income from tourism. Until 20th Century, islanders mainly married each other resulting in very few different names. It became a popular resort for artists during the 1920’s and they were early adopters of anti-semitism. Signs were posted on the harbours simply stating ‘no Jews here’.
Between 1949 and 1989, ‘Holidays for all’ was an aim of the GDR and overnight guests increased fivefold to 36,000. Hiddensee proved an ideal venue to ensure holidays makers behaved and thought appropriately. Today, it gave us a photo opportunity of Ken testing one of the islands famous beach chairs.
We caught the ferry back to Stralsund in the sunshine. We were surprised it took over 2.5 hours. At least the sun was shining out on deck. We then walked from the ferry to our hotel, can you guess why?
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