Three Weekends of Travel: Part II

Rostock. 7 hours northeast of Cologne by train, just inland from the East Sea. It's an old Hanseatic City that still has chunks of the old city wall standing, and you can even walk along a part of it. There's all kinds of old historic buildings, and one of the coolest looking churches I think I've seen here. You can tell it was built by sea traders somehow, because it's huge and looks like it could be used for a trading center or something.

My train ride took me back through Bremen and into Hamburg, where I had to transfer to a regional train for the last leg up to Rostock. Apparently it's a very popular tourist destination on weekends and holidays because all the seats were full and most of the entryways were packed too. I ended up standing for 2 1/2 hours with a loud and energetic soccer team.


The weather cooperated and it was sunny the whole time I was there. I basically spent all my time walking around looking at buildings. The lady at the hostel front desk loaned me a little book that outlined a walking tour to all the most important sights around the city, and it proved to be quite nice. There were little paragraphs about the history of all the places, so I could read about it too.

Part of the old city wall

City Hall

The church is that huge thing in the background

Some sort of spring fair, with music and rides and
lots of little booths selling handmade stuff. It's held on an old
loading dock along the river.

An old gate in the wall.

Those window panels on the roof are for apartments in the
attic of this church. Cool, huh?

Oldest astrological clock still in operation,
with the original parts even!

Rostock is the largest city in the area, but you can see most everything in less than a day. However, the city annexed a port area on the East Sea called Warnemünde, which is at the mouth of the Warnow River. It's a really cool little port town with some actual sand beaches. There are all kinds of food booths lined up along the canal, tons of those sun lounge things for rent on the beach, and several blocks of old ship's captain's houses that are now small shops or vacation homes.

You can buy fresh seafood right off of a boat and eat it
right there.

An old lighthouse and visitor's center/
restaurant behind it.

On the way home, I had about an hour layover in Hamburg, so I took a quick stroll through the city to remember what it looked like. Stopped by the city hall for a picture, and then went back to the train station.