Germany (Lonely Planet, 6th Edition) - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [672]
East of Rubenowplatz is the ‘Kleine Jakob’, the modest Jakobikirche ( 502 209; Karl-Marx-Platz 4; 10am-4pm Mon & Thu, 10am-2pm Tue, 10am-3pm Fri, 10am-noon Sat, 10.30am-noon Sun, closed Wed).
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Sleeping & Eating
Greifswald has some lovely hotels (many in beautiful historic buildings), with more in the pretty harbourside precinct of Wieck; the tourist office can make bookings.
Hotel Alter Speicher ( 777 00; www.alter-speicher.de, in German; Rossmühlenstrasse 25; s €69-74, d €84-89; ) In a renovated warehouse overlooking the river just outside the centre, simple but appealing timber-furnished rooms and a good regional restaurant make the Alter Speicher great value for money.
Hotel Galerie ( 773 7830; www.hotelgalerie.de, in German; Mühlenstrasse 10; s/d €78/98; ) Rooms in this sparkling modern property across from the state museum are filled with a changing collection of works by contemporary artists.
Zum Alten Fritz ( 578 30; Am Markt 13; mains €8.90-15.90; from 11am) Greifswald’s branch of this wonderful local brewery chain occupies one of the most striking step-gabled redbrick buildings on the Markt. Many of its dishes are cooked in its own beer.
Fischer-Hütte ( 839 654; An der Mühle 8; mains €9.90-23.40; from 11.30am) An exquisitely presented meal at the ‘fisherman’s house’ in Wieck might start with potato soup with a fried scallop and black caviar and move onto the house speciality – smoked herring with mango in creamy curry sauce, topped off by marzipan parfait with sesame seed brittle on dried apricot salsa.
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Getting There & Away
There are regular train services to Stralsund (€9, 25 minutes), Rostock (from €17.80, 1½ hours) and Berlin Hauptbahnhof (from €32.90, 2½ to three hours).
The A20 connects Greifswald with Lübeck and Rostock, and links with the A11 to Berlin.
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Getting Around
It’s easy to get around Greifswald’s centre on foot, but to reach outlying areas you may want to make use of the bus system. Single/day tickets cost €1.70/3.50. You can reach Wieck via a 4km foot/bike path, or by bus 6 or 7. If you’re driving, head east towards Wolgast; the turn-off is on your left.
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USEDOM ISLAND
Usedom (Uznam in Polish) lies in the delta of the Oder River about 30km east of Greifswald, and is separated from the German mainland by the wide Peene River. The island’s eastern tip lies across the border in Poland. Although the German side accounts for 373 sq km of the island’s total 445-sq-km surface area, the population of the Polish side is larger (45,000 compared with 31,500 on the German side).
Nicknamed Badewanne Berlins (Berlin’s Bathtub) in the prewar period, the island was a sought-after holiday spot in GDR days for its 42km stretch of beautiful beach and average 1906 annual hours of sunshine that make it the sunniest place in Germany. As sprucing up continues it’s coming into its own. Elegant 1920s villas with wrought-iron balconies grace many traditional resorts along its northern spine, including Zinnowitz, Ückeritz, Bansin, Heringsdorf and Ahlbeck. All have tourist offices. Usedom Tourismus ( 038378-477 10; www.usedom.de) can book accommodation island-wide.
It was at Peenemünde, on the island’s western tip, that Wernher von Braun developed the V2 rocket, first launched in October 1942. It flew 90km high and a distance of 200km before plunging into the Baltic – the first time in history that a flying object exited the earth’s atmosphere. The research and testing complex was destroyed by the Allies in July 1944, but the Nazis continued their research in Nordhausen in the southern Harz (see Mittelbau Dora, Click here). At the Historisch-Technisches Informationszentrum