Germany (Lonely Planet, 6th Edition) - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [658]
Organ recitals, choirs and bands perform from May to September, usually on Friday evenings – contact the Bad Doberan tourist office for tickets.
ZAPPA MEMORIAL
Since 1989, Bad Doberan’s racecourse has been the unlikely venue each July for the Zappanale (www.arf-society.de), Germany’s only Frank Zappa festival. A Zappa memorial was erected in the town centre in 2002 amid much psychedelic rejoicing.
MOLLI SCHMALSPURBAHN
In 1886, the steam train ‘Molli’, as she’s affectionately known, began huffing and puffing her way to Heiligendamm, carrying Germany’s elite. Then in 1910, the line was extended west along the coast to Kühlungsborn. Today the train goes by the full name of Mecklenburger Bäderbahn Molli ( 4150; www.molli-bahn.de), with services departing Bad Doberan’s train station on average 11 times a day year-round.
With a maximum speed of 45km/h, the journey takes 15 minutes to reach the coast at Heiligendamm (one-way/return €4/7) and 45 minutes in total to Kühlungsborn/West (€6/11), with interim stops in Steilküste, Kühlungsborn/East and Kühlungsborn/Mitte. Concessions and family fares are also available. Children love the dinky engine and carriages. There’s a salon car on many journeys and the scenery is lovely.
To help plan your day, pick up a pocket-sized timetable when you buy your ticket at Bad Doberan’s train station.
For a particularly easy and enjoyable walk, you can get off at Heiligendamm and walk to the Steilküste station before picking up the train again.
HEILIGENDAMM
The ‘white town on the sea’ is Germany’s oldest seaside resort, founded in 1793 by Mecklenburg duke Friedrich Franz I and fashionable throughout the 19th century as a playground of the nobility.
In the 21st century, it has been reborn, with the opening of the exclusive Grand Hotel Heiligendamm ( 7400; www.grandhotel-heiligendamm.de; s/d from €225/260; ). With cool, contemporary rooms housed in five gleaming white, heritage-listed buildings, the palatial hotel is continuing the resort’s tradition and hosted a G8 summit in 2007. Even for those not staying here, the hotel is an attraction, with some seven restaurants and bars, its own pier, pristine beach and surrounding parkland.
KÜHLUNGSBORN
Kühlungsborn, the biggest Baltic Sea resort, with some 7453 inhabitants, is also home to some lovely art-deco buildings and adjoins a dense 130-hectare forest. The east and west parts of town are linked by the Ostseeallee promenade, lined with hotels and restaurants. In the eastern part of town you’ll find a pier running 240m out to sea and a newly built yacht harbour.
All sorts of water sports, including diving, are on offer. For more information, contact the Kurverwaltung (spa resort administration; 8490; www.kuehlungsborn.de; Ostseeallee 19; 9am-6pm Mon-Fri, 10am-4pm Sat & Sun May-Sep, 9am-4pm Mon-Fri, 10am-1pm Sat & Sun Oct-Apr).
Return to beginning of chapter
Getting There & Around
Trains connect Bad Doberan with Rostock Hauptbahnhof (€6.90, 25 minutes) and Wismar (€6.90, 45 minutes) roughly hourly. By car, take the B105 towards Wismar.
See opposite for details of the Molli Schmalspurbahn steam train linking Bad Doberan with the coastal resorts.
Return to beginning of chapter
WISMAR
03841 / pop 45,182
With its gabled facades and cobbled streets, this small, photogenic city looks essentially Hanseatic. But although it joined the Hanseatic trading league in the 13th century, it spent most of the 16th and 17th centuries as part of Sweden. There are numerous reminders of this era all over town, including some striking buildings, a clock and a tomb. The entire Altstadt was Unesco-listed in 2002.
Wismar has been long popular with film-makers and its picturesque Alter Hafen (old harbour) starred in the 1922 Dracula movie Nosferatu; and today it’s not unusual to stumble across movie crews around town.
Return to beginning of chapter
Orientation
Wismar’s Altstadt centres on