I am so behind with my blog posts I wonder if I will catch up before we go home. But each time I sit down to process photos to put in the blog my mind is flooded with so many amazing memories. I imagine there will be too many pictures for most of you, Sorry but if you stick through till the end...
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| It was a beautiful but COLD day. We are in Vitte and we just had our hair cuts. Finding someone to cut our hair while we are traveling is always a challenge but we did find a nice young man to help us out. 😄 |
Already it seems like another life time ago that we were on Rügen. But we had so many amazing experiences while we were there. I do not have the words to really describe our time. It is so lovely, even in the fall and I felt such a sense of peace. Many thoughts of what it was like for my ancestors while they lived there were constantly in my mind. Did they walk on this road? Did they enjoy the beauty? Was life difficult for them? And I wished I could have just a short glimpse into their lives. And then there were the burial mounds! Sometimes I am just so greedy at wanting to know everything! So many memories and way too many photos but that is just how it is. So much beauty!
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| love these! |
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| Fun sign.Just so the truckers know to expect the trees over the road. |
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| And this is what it takes to keep this lovely tree arches going! |
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| Sometimes the photo is JUST RIGHT! |
Prora is an interesting town/village. Construction began in Hitler's day to provide a vacation place for those deemed worthy to go. Of course the war ended before the project was completed leaving so many unfinished buildings. This link can provide you with more detail if you are interested.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/06/hitler-holiday-camp-prora-nazi-development
It is an immense property! There has been a lot of renovation since I first saw this in 2001. So many beautiful new condos and hotels and restaurants. But still a long way to go to have it all finished.
After some confusion and walking along a lot of the area we connected with Jens and were able to have nice lunch together. He was taking a walking tour around the island which amazed us since we were using the car. It was nice to connect if only for a brief time. Amazing to realize how families can connect. A nice feeling.
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| The new and the old in one shot. |
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| the beach! |
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| More beach! |
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| Seaweed where amber/bernstein might be found. I always thought it would be cool to find some. But I had to be content with buying a lovely necklace at one of the many shops. |
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| Beautiful condos! |
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| On the hunt for Jens, in the rain. We each started at opposite ends of Prora but finally found each other. |
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| And here we all are together. Proof that we actually found each other and were able to share a meal and have a short but nice visit. |
There is so much to be seen on Rügen and we loved all we saw. But of course we could not see everything even staying for a whole month. We also met another person with whom I have shared information. Sadly we forgot to get a photo. Although Gabi is not a relative she and her cousin have been very helpful to me. I was able to share information I had about her family and they found and translated vital records from the Berlin registers for people they found with the names of my ancestors who had roots on Rügen but had moved to Berlin. I love how when you do research and share information that you inevitably receive more information back. So great!
One day we were treated to a fine lunch at the Himmelreich Inn in Zirkow by one of the members of the Greifswald Branch who lives on Rügen. The food was fantastic and the owners were a delight to meet and even referred us to Philip who cut our hair. Philip's father was a Cuban soldier brought to Rügen during the communist era who married a German girl and stayed. I was surprised by how many people of Cuban descent lived on Rügen.
Lots of beautiful views from our time driving here and there.:
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| Our friend Roland's house. Love the roof! |
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| I just can't get enough of the forests. I would love to walk in them. |
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| There were SO many swans but I would have needed to hover over them to get a good shot. Every time I thought had a good shot they would put their heads into the water and search for food. But they presented a beautiful sight. |
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| This statue towered above the trees so it was our quest to find it and figure out what it was. |
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| Walking to the statue |
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| Found it! |
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| Out in the middle of nowhere and looking out over the bay. |
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| Patched cobblestone on a main road. |
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| cobblestone road. |
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| Someone else's turn to ride on the train. |
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| Another cobblestone road. |
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| Fun town sign for Middelhagen. |
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| The beautiful forest floor. |
We visited an outdoor market at Theissow which was great. I always enjoy markets and go as often as we can. It is always fun to see the wonderful crafts made by so many creative people. We bought a great lawn ornament which was kind of big and cost much more to ship it home than it did to buy it! But it appears to have made it home along with a few souvenirs, summer clothes etc. We will enjoy it in our garden and it will bring back many memories of a special time of our lives. Just as we arrived there was a rainbow. It is seldom that I see a FULL rainbow.
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| Love markets! and yes I found a few other little things to buy. |
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| Full rainbow which did not stay very long but fun to see. |
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| Just fun stuff. |
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So this car was at the market. It is a Trabant which is a communist car. When I was on Rügen in 2001 I heard all kinds of stores about how terrible they were and how people had to pay for them up front and then wait for months to actually get theirs etc. So if you want to know more check out this fun video.
9:40The Trabant Was an Awful Car Made By Communists |
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| This is a ceramic shop. It was so beautiful I had to stop and take a photo and when I realized it was a ceramic shop I had to check it out and of course I found something to buy. |
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| Street view in Bergen |
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| Still in Bergen. |
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| Town square in Bergen. |
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| More Bergen. |
Some of my ancestors came from Patzig and I was very interested in seeing the inside of that church since it was not open the last time we were on Rügen. I had written to the Evangelische Pfarramt Martin Holz to ask for permission to see the inside. He was so kind to arrange for one of the women who works for the church to meet us at the church on a week day. It was a thrill to be where I knew my ancestors Engel Jasmankan and Niclas Klempen had been way back in the 1700's. So many thoughts and questions about their lives ran through my mind. The parish records do not begin until 1792 but they had been married about 1775 according to the ages of their children. Niclas had died before the records began but I was able to find much information about their family through the marriage records of their children. It was just very cool for me to be in that church.
The lady who showed us around the church repeated the invitation of Herr Holz for us to attend the special Thanksgiving service the next week which we did. It was a great privilege to attend the service and to be invited as guests to the town hall for a "coffee'' following the service. Although we do not drink coffee a special effort was made to give us water to drink. The fellowship was very nice and we were definitely made to feel welcome. We were told that we were the first Americans to visit who were looking for their ancestors in Patzig. My minimal German language skills were enough to barely communicate but we still felt the warmth and love of these lovely people.
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| Steve by the front door of the Patzig church. |
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| A model of the Patzig church |
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| The altar of the Patzig church. |
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| Artwork on the back side of the altar depicting the life of St. Margaret for whom the church is named. |
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| The second panel of artwork on the back side of the altar. |
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| At one time this beautiful painting was part of the altar. |
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| As in many of the old churches the whitewash has hidden art work of days gone by. Here are a few examples that are available to see. |
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| I wonder how many of my ancestors were christened in this?? |
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| Note the ceilings. |
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| This balcony is dated 1755 so surely my ancestors have seen it. |
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| Many churches have lists of those fallen in WWI. |
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| I wonder if this is where the women's door used to be. In days gone by the women entered the church by a different door than the men. |
Next to Patzig lies Gnies. As the sign says only 2 km. The Jasmankan family lived in Gnies which is such a small place, Not even village. But the land is beautiful. And it is not so far from Bergen. Really the island is very small but still has 29 Evangelsiche parishes. The people did not have to go very far to go to church.
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| The red line on this signs shows that we are leaving Patzig. The sign also shows how close Gnies is to Patzig. |
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| Gnies |
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| An amazing sky. |
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| Note the solar panels!!! |
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| More solar panels. |
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| Yes they seem to have frequent construction projects in Germany as well as at home. |
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| I loved all of the well kept fields. |
Bergen is the largest town on Rügen and sits kind of in the middle. We visited the Bergen Church which was being repainted the last time we were on Rügen. The work is beautifully completed now and all of the detail of the old church has been renewed. My Grawe, Freifanke, Jasmankan, Ubechel, Freese and many connected ancestors lived there. The records for this parish begin about 1626 so there is a lot of information available. It was my great privilege to extract information from those records on my first visit to Rügen in 2001. We poured over the books for several days and took all of the information for the names of my ancestors. Since then I have been able to add to that information to get a more clear picture of my ancestors. I wonder if all of this ornate artwork existed back in those days?
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| Honoring the fallen of WWI. |
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| Bergen town square |
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| The parking lot in town square. |
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| We shopped in this Lidl store in Binz several times.The grocery stores have many other items as well as groceries and we have shopped in this store in Wales, Germany and Denmark. |
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| So doing laundry while traveling can be kind of an adventure. Sometimes the places we stay have a washer and dryer, sometimes just a washer and we get to dry on clothing racks. Sometimes we have neither washer nor dryer and we have to find a laundromat which can be very expensive. It cost 5€ to wash one load and 2€ for 15 minutes of drying,. Thankfully we could put all of the clothes in one dryer but it still became an expensive proposition to get our clothes washed. This place in Binz was nice even though it was expensive and it was right by the grocery. [1€ is worth about $1.12 so it added up pretty quickly.] |
I love that we can get on the computer at churchofjesuschrist.org and scroll down to 'find a meetinghouse' put in the town we are at and find the closest place to attend a church meeting and what time it will start.
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| This beautiful building houses the Greifswald Branch. The first floor on the right side is where the rooms are located. |
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| Greifswald |
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| Traveling back and forth to church had its perks as we saw much beauty. |
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| As time moved on we got to watch the leaves change color and that was nice. |
Evangelische Pfarramt Martin Holz who has the responsibility of 6 parishes was also very kind to offer his time and give us a tour of the Schaprode and Trent churches. They have both recently celebrated significant anniversaries and were restored and are very lovely. These churches are only about 4 km apart. My Scheele ancestors come from that area and were listed in the records of both parishes.
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| The history of christianity in that area is painted on the side of the stairs. In 2018 a young boy found coins in a nearby field near Schaprode dating back to that time of Harold Bluetooth. Here is the link if you are interested. We have also come home with a list of books to read to learn more of the more recent history of Rügen. Herr Holz told us so many interesting details but we need to read and learn more of what it was like when my anchors lived there. |
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| If you look closely you will see the devil lurking at the top of the alter. |
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| The altar at Schaprode. |
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| Detail at the Scaprode church. |
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| Beautiful details and the thanksgiving offerings. |
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| Ancestors were christend here. |
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| Detail in Schaprode. |
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| Schaprode Church |
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| Beautiful altar in the Trent church. |
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| This unique little cupboard is located just behind the altar in Trent. I love the way it looks. |
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| For their anniversary the Trent church created a number of large pictures depicting the history of the church and the area. This small part talks about the Christianization of Rügen. |
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| The lovely Trent Church. |
One day we drove north to visit Kap Arkona. On the way we stopped in Bobbin and fortunately found the church was open so we could go inside to walk where my ancestors walked way back in the 1600's. We got in trouble when we could not read a sign on the inner door and were scolded by another tourist for leaving the door open. Apparently the sign said to keep the door closed. But it was kind of an interesting door and we had some concern that if we shut it we might be shut in. The church was interesting and I found myself wondering about my Friefancke ancestor who lived there in the 1600's. Where did his name come from and who was he? And then I was attacked by mosquitos as I walked at the back of the church yard. Yikes! so many bites! But still glad we stopped.
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Near Bobbin - love how people are creative with their hay bales. |
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| Interior of Bobbin church |
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| Stained glass in Bobbin. |
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| More old art work. I wonder at the meanings of the art. |
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| Close up of Bobbin altar and where my ancestors was christened. |
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| Interesting column. |
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| I wonder how old this cash box is? |
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| Steve by the interesting inner door in Bobbin church. |
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| A side view of the Bobbin church. I thought it was so interesting. |
We visited Kap Arkona because I was very interested in the history of the place. According to something I read some years back in the Historian's History Book the Danish King Valdemar the Great was tired of the pirates of Rügen and wanted to put a stop to it all. So he found a way to get his forces onto Rügen and up to Kap Arkona to take down the wooden god and to introduce Christianity to the island. According to what I read the king told his soldiers to be very careful in toppling the 'god' so that no one would be hurt so the people of that island could not say that their god had done it. At any rate christianity was introduced to the island and I have always thought it interesting that my father's ancestor Valdemar the Great introduced christianity to my mother's ancestors who came from Rügen.
But I was disappointed that there is nothing really to see of what would have been the old temple. I guess every year there is a loss of land to the ocean as part of the chalk cliffs fall into the ocean. And the temple area has long been lost. All there was to see were towers, etc. I climbed over 148 steps to reach the top to see the view. Interesting but not what I had hoped to see. However they had a cool artist area with many interesting wood carvings etc to see and lots to buy if you were so inclined. We had taken an electric train from the parking area which was kind of cool since the weather was chilly and Steve was struggling with his walking
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| Some woods near Glowe which is near Bobbin. |
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| No cars are allowed at Kap Arkona so we had to go to the car park. Going in was fine but I did not understand that I had to go to a special hut and have my ticket processed before it would allow the gate to go up. So, I experienced some embarrassment as I tired about 3 times to make the ticket work before I backed up and took care of business. |
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| Seems making hay people is the thing. I think they are cute. |
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| A sailboat in the ocean. |
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| The towers at Kap Arkona |
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| A wood carving near a shop at Kap Arkona. Looking at some other sources it seems this is a possible replica image someone believes was like the 'god' Sventovit. Although I am not sure how they decided that was how it looked. |
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| Cool carved walrus. |
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| I love to poke around in the markets. |
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| Interesting feather tree. |
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| Steve patiently waiting while I checked out the shops |
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| Yes, I did find something to put in my bag. Nice vase actually. Can't wait to see if it made it home without breaking. We sent it out along with the lawn ornament. The box made it but we hope the vases did too. |
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| Path to the ocean |
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| Hmmm - here we are. |
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| The tower and museum at Kap Arkona. |
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| Yes, I did walk up the 148 steps to the top. |
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| Looking way down to see the train waiting for passengers. |
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| The cute electric train. |
Another place inaccessible by car is the old fishing village of Vitte. From the same parking lot we took another little electric train to Vitte and then walked down the hill to the quaint and charming village. It was fun to see the old houses which must have been the kind my ancestors lived in so long ago. It was right down by the ocean and there was a little church but I felt sad when I saw the mural inside as I reflected on how many men and boys had been lost to the sea. I also had ancestors on Rügen who were fishermen and I think that was a hard and dangerous life. There were some cute little shops and a couple of restaurants and we were able to get some nice warm food before heading back. Then we worried we had missed the last train but we were in good company as we waited and soon were rewarded as the last train arrived.
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| Vitte Church |
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| Mural inside the Vitte church. Look at the details. |
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| A simple altar |
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| Vitte |
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| I liked these curtains. I am beginning to think of things I want to do in our new house after we get home. |
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| There is always something about the sea that appeals to me. |
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| Good view of Kap Arkona |
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| OK so this was kind of funny. As I was standing next to this Arkona Telefon a young boy about 9 years of age and his mother walked up. He could not understand how this could be a telephone. So I picked up the receiver and said "hello hello" and tried to dial and then he sort of understood Wow! I guess I am very old to know about these old phones. |
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| Waiting for the train as the sun came close to setting. |
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| The sign with map details of the area. |
We had been told that there was an interesting rock circle near Kap Arkona and were lucky enough to find it before the sun was down. I am so fascinated by these rock formations. I know that they were constructed by ancient inhabitants of the island and it is very likely that some were my ancestors. Oh, how I wish I knew more about them!
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| And we were there just in time to catch the sunset. |
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| Love this shot. |
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| As we drove towards home we watched the sunset behind the trees. |
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| There were not many people in the rainy square. |
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| The flag of Rügen. I had thought to buy a flag of Germany but when I found out there was one for Rügen I changed my plan. We are having a family reunion in July and I want to have an international night featuring all of the countries from which our children have ancestors. So, I have been buying flags from each country. We are quite international. We hail from Wales, Ireland, Scotland, England, Denmark, Rügen, Sweden and Switzerland. I am hoping to have a flag for each country and to have food from each country. Should be fun! |
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| A postman or postal employee delivering mail. |
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| Steve decided he would sit and wait rather than walk as I tried to find the right store. |
We also had heard about an ancient burial ground. So we mapped it on Googlemaps and set out to find it. It was so amazing. It has been reported that in the 1800's there were over 2500 graves. Some have been destroyed but many still remain. We only saw the circle mentioned earlier and the 7 graves and circle at this location. It would have been interesting to see some of the others but we had to be content that we could not see everything.
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| Großsteinrgräber at Lancken Grabitz What an adventure! |
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| Looking out over the area. the small groves of trees each had graves. |
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| The path from a couple of graves back to the others. |
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| The forest behind the graves although it did not exist back then. Trees do not live very long much to my dismay. |
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| Cool mushrooms near the graves. |
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| Lots of logging going on but it seemed to be selective. |
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| Just on our wayout. |
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| Posertiz Church was locked. |
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| This property is Warksow where the Camins lived. |
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| Warksaw old buildings but not nearly old enough to have been there when my family was there. |
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| The beautiful Poseritz area. |
Then the time came for us to leave our lovely Binz home. It was an amazing month with many adventures. I loved our time there and felt so at home and such peace. It was sad to leave. But we drove on to Rostock where we took the ferry to Gedser, Denmark to begin our Danish adventures.
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| Interesting overpass decorations - above and beyond. |
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| Waiting for the ferry |
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| Lots of wind farms in the ocean. |
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| We were hungry and Burger King can be comfort food sometimes. Notice that the Bulgar King signage in Denmark is in English at least at this one. |