The Lost Fort
My Travel and History Blog, Focussing mostly on Roman and Mediaeval Times
Happy Easter
I wish my readers a Happy Easter.
There is not much in the way of spring outside, so I picked some photos from the spring tour I did last year, when nature was already wearing a veil of fresh verdant.
Spring at the Trave river in Lübeck
A nice way to see some beautiful vistas of Lübeck is a boat tour on the rivers and canals surrounding the old town.
The Slavic open air museum in Gross-Raden
I visited the open air museum in Gross-Raden (near Schwerin) which shows a reconstructed Slavic settlement with ringwall fort twice, in spring and in autumn. It is a fun place to explore and I did not have enough time during the first visit.
The Viking open air museum in Haithabu in Schleswig
The trading settlement of Haithabu / Hedeby was even larger, but the open air museum covers only a small part of the area. The wall around the settlement still exists for the most part, and that is where you can see how large the place once was.
Lambs in the open air museum Gross-Raden
We can't have an Easter post without some easter lambs now, can we? :-)
Flensburg Firth
And finally another photo of blue, sparkling water. The Flensburg Firth on a spring afternoon.
Harbour Impressions from Wismar
I have been to Wismar twice last year, in spring for the brick architecture and in autumn to join a sailing trip on the reconstrcuted cog Wissemara. In spring I got sunshine; in autumn a mix of rain, sun and a thunderstorm. So I got a collection of photos with different moods again.
The skyline of Wismar's old town
Left to right: St.Nicolai Church, tower of St.Mary, St.George Church,
and several cranes in the harbour outside the town
The tour on the cog gave me the chance to take photos from the seaside. When we left, the rain stopped and the sun came out (which made for a really nice trip). Upon return, a nasty, dark-clouded thunderstorm was brewing over the town while the evening sun still shone on the sea, highlighting some features in an eerie glow.
A container crane seen in the light of an incoming thunderstorm
Like Stralsund, Wismar was a Slavic settlement in the early Middle Ages; the tribe living in the area were the Obodrite. Their prince Heinrich Borwin, a Christian and vassal of Duke Heinrich the Lion of Saxony, founded Wismar in 1226. This brought an influx of German settlers. The three settlements around the churches St.Nicolai, St.Mary, and St. George grew together, and by 1276 a wall surrounded the entire town. Wismar became an official member of the Hanseatic League in 1259 when the town joined with Lübeck and Rostock to fight the Baltic Sea pirates.
Wismar, St.Nicolai Church seen from the sea
Wismar lies inside a bay which is further protected by Poel isle on the southern end. The old town is Unesco World Heritage, together with Stalsund. Wismar had suffered bomb destruction during WW2, and the GDR government had the St.Mary church blown up except for the tower (instead of repairing it). But both Wismar and Stralsund have undergone lots of renovation after the German reunion and are today little jewels of brick architecture with some splendid churches.
Tower of St.Mary Church, St. George, and modern container cranes
Wismar - also like Stralsund - became a Swedish possession after the Thirty Years War, since the Swedes had conquered the town in 1632. The Swedish kings turned Wismar into a sea fortress with 18 bastions carrying 700 canons, but Sweden nevertheless lost Wismar to Prussia in the Great Nordic War in 1716 (1) and was forced to dismantle the bastions.
Sweden pawned out Wismar to the dukes of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in 1803 and abandoned the pawn in 1903, so Wismar fell back to Germany. This is still celebrated today.
View to the old harbour, with one of the new container cranes in the background
Wismar's old harbour, once teeming with cogs being unloaded and merchants in fur lined cloaks checking on wares, is now a quiet place used by smaller sailing ships, some fisherboats who sell snacks directly from the railing, and the Poel ferries. Though on a sunny day the place can still be busy with tourists. And thieving gulls. ;-)
The old harbour on a sunny day
At the outer end of the old quay stands the 18th century 'Beam House'. The building is named after the beams and chains that were drawn across the water to protect the harbour at night. On the other side is the Water Gate, built 1450 in the gabled Gothic style. It is one of the five gates that once allowed entrance into the town and the only one to access the town from the water side. You can see the Water Gate on the photo below; it is the gabled building with the white decorations to the left.
The old harbour on a Sunday evening
The old harbour is framed by warehouses many of which today house hotels and restaurants. At the end of the season, with fewer tourists around and the weather on the dreary side, the old harbour is a quiet place.
Besides the old harbour, Wismar has several marinas in the outskirts of the town.
Leaving the harbour on the cog
Nowadasy, new harbours and shipyards spread along the inner part of the bay. They had grown over time and got an additional push after 1945 when Russia established a shipyard for its fleet in Wismar. After the reunion, it was taken over by Nordic Yard, which is one of the main employers in Wismar and well known for its large dry dock of 395 metres length and 72 metres height.
Wismar, the outer harbour
The sea harbour deals with timber, steel, building materials, and salt, among other goods. The docks have a length of 2.3 kilometres and offer space for up to 15 large cargo ships.The transhipping in 2015 was 3.7 million tons, making the harbour of Wismar more important than Stralsund.
The reconstructed cog Wissemara in the rain
In 1997, the wreck of a Hanseatic cog was found in the Bay of Wismar near the Poel isle. Research showed that it was made of pine timbers cut in 1354. The hull was clinker-built and showed elements that date back to the Viking and Slavic ships of the early Middle Ages, thus perhaps providing an example for the special 'Baltic cog' which has been assumed to have existed (2). The cog is 31 metres long and could carry freight of 200 tons.
The cog against the light
The wreck served as model for the reconstruction of a cog using the old techniques. The planks were cut with special axes; saws did not exist. They were then bent into shape using steam - a very tricky process. The one difference was the use of steel nails instead of iron ones. I visited the construction site in 2004 and talked with the guys working there, so it was a special experience to be able to actually sail the cog whose hull I had seen back then (it was finished in 2006). The cog, dubbed Wissemara, has been equipped with a motor and a toilet, plus benches and cots in the freight space, and offers sailing tours from several hours to several days.
Passing the sea bridge in the evening light
Footnotes
1) Basically Russia, Saxony / Poland and Denmark / Norway, both personal unions, against Sweden, fighting for supremacy on the Baltic Sea. Later, England, Prussia, Hannover, France, the Netherlands, Poland-Lithuania and others joined in, inlcuding the Ottoman Empire, thus extending the conflict all the way to the Crimea. It lasted from 1700 to 1721.
2) The significance of the find is still discussed.
A Bit of Sunshine - The Flensburg Firth
The dreary weather between winter and spring has put me in a melancholical mood and makes me long for some real sunshine. So I checked my photos for some pretty pics.
Sailing boats on the Flensburg Firth
There, that's much better. A sunny spring afternoon I spent on a little tour on the Flensburg Firth - with a good Flensburg beer. :-)
The coast on the German side
The Flensburg Firth or Flensburger Förde, as it is called in German, is the westernmost Baltic Sea inlet on the Schleswig peninsula. It is actually not a firth (fjord) because it was not shaped by a glacier flowing into the sea, but by a landward moving glacier that pushed up material in front of it to form part of the peninsula. A Förde is also shallower than a firth.
Ox Islands on the Danish side
The Flensburg Firth is the border between Germany in the south and Denmark in the north today. Historically, the Schleswig peninsula was a contested area between Germany and Denmark for most of the time, and the border shifted accordingly.
The Flensburg Firth seen against the light
The length of the firth is 40 or 50 km, depending on the definition, since the inlet is divided in two parts by some islands. The little ship tour - actually a ferry connection that can also be booked as 3 hours round trip - only travels the inner firth to the Ox Islands / Sønderhav on the Danish side and the town of Glücksburg on the German side.
The quay and beach at Glücksburg
It had been a spontaneous idea, since I actually had come to Flensburg for the pretty houses in the old town, but it was one of the best ideas I had. The tour was absolutely lovely.
Naval Academy Mürwik
One of the more splendid sights of the tour is the Naval Academy Mürwick, the main training establishment for German Navy officers. It is situated on a small hill overlooking the firth. The main building is also know as the 'Red Castle' due to its colour and architecture.
The harbour of Flensburg with sailing boats coming in
The harbour of Flensburg is very pretty with marinas for sailing boats, a historical harbour, and some ferry terminals. Nothing big, and no huge freighter ships around. It was a quiet and sunny place that afternoon.
Flensburg, the historical harbour
I stayed in Flensburg to wait for the evening train back to Schleswig where my hotel was, and walked around the historical harbour and the old town in the evening sun.
Historical sailing ships
Göttingen is a pretty town, and the surrounding mountain areas of Harz, Solling and Meissner are beautiful, but I do miss the sea sometimes. At least I have the photos and the memories.
A quiet evening
And hopefully, my mood will soon improve and I'll be able to write the second post about the Hiddensee treasure which I have promised.
The Lost Fort is a travel and history blog based on my journeys in Germany, the UK, Scandinavia, the Baltic Countries, and central Europe. It includes virtual town and castle tours with a focus on history, museum visits, hiking tours, and essays on Roman and Mediaeval history, illustrated with my own photos.
This blog is non-commercial.
All texts and photos (if no other copyright is noted) are copyright of Gabriele Campbell.
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- Name: Gabriele Campbell
- Location: Goettingen, Germany
I'm a blogger from Germany with a MA in Literature and History, interested in everything Roman and Mediaeval, avid reader and sometimes writer, opera enthusiast, traveller with a liking for foreign languages and odd rocks, photographer, and tea aficionado. And an old-fashioned blogger who still hasn't got an Instagram account.
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