Go Germany: Louise Eastfalls for the charms of the Baltic coastal resort of Rügen – and is smitten by an item of beach furniture she finds simply irresistible
I FELL IN LOVE last summer. The object of my affection? The strandkörbe, a Heath Robinson-ish contraption found dotted along the pretty beaches of Germany’s Baltic coast. Folded up, they resemble Victorian laundry hampers, all wickerwork and striped ticking.
Unfolded, they provide a small sofa, two foot stools, an extendable sun shade, a small drinks table and two small lockers thus solving, in one elegant swoop, every problem faced by the fair-skinned, shade-needing sun-lover who likes cold beer, reading and not having her stuff nicked.
The man in charge of strandkorb rentals at Binz on the island of Rügen insists they were invented locally which fits rather nicely as the whole town has a strandkorb-ish air – white clapboard houses, striped awnings over intricate metal balconies, a certain late Victorian charm.
In fact, Rügen in its entirety has a sepia tint, as though one of Chekhov’s adulterers might stroll past as you sip a glass of sea buckthorn juice or troll for Baltic amber on the beach at Göhren. After the baking heat and perma-tans of the Med, the chalk cliffs, shady woods and clean white beaches of sunny Rügen are a revelation.
Caspar David Friedrich, creator of those epic 19th century landscapes, thought so. He came to Rügen on his honeymoon, and then spent much of his time painting a wonderfully spiky holiday snapshot of the island’s famous cliff, the Königsstuhl.
Predictably enough, the cliffs look smaller in real life, but they’re striking nonetheless, the chalk crags bone white against a noticeably turquoise sea.
From here, it's a two-hour walk through cool green beech trees, which sprout from the cliffs like a frilly mop-top, to Sassnitz, a charming harbour town with a long boardwalk, a handful of simple fish restaurants and, for no reason that any one could tell me, an old British submarine, the HMS Otus. Inside, it's unbelievably tiny, with bunks the width of bookshelves and pygmy showers, but with periscopes to look through and ladders to scramble up and down, it's cat-nip for small boys.
A little further down the coast is its hulking shadow twin. At four and a half kilometres long and six storeys high, Prora, a deserted Nazi-built holiday camp is a one-building testament to the era’s grim monomania. Intended as a kind of Butlins for the party faithful, with a projected occupancy rate of 20,000, Prora was never used, except as a Cold War era army training camp.
The combination of white sand beach and four kilometres of empty square windows is startling. Ten minutes of walking doesn’t even get you to the midway point, and the pretty tangle of dog roses fringing the graffiti-decked walls can’t distract from the thunderous feel of the place.
Although Rügen is Germany’s largest island, at 51km by 43km, it’s still not vast, and a ridiculously cute narrow-gauge steam train called the Racing Roland has been puffing around it since 1895. It’s an easy day’s task to idle away the morning at Sellin, pausing to order a coffee and maybe a glass of that sanddorn juice in the Art Deco pavilion floating like a gin palace at the end of a 500m long pier.
At noon, jump on the steam train to Binz and after a lunch of Ostsee flounder and a doze in a strandkorb, wake up with a wander through the pretty turn-of-the-century villas behind the beach.
In the late afternoon, head inland to Putbus, once home to Prince Wilhelm-Malte, who claimed to have introduced the concept of sea-bathing to Germany. All that’s left of his castle now are the beautiful grounds, the rose garden and the Orangerie, the schloss itself having been destroyed during the DDR years.
Hiring a bicycle and taking to the tree-lined avenues criss-crossing the island opens up plenty more options. The beaches of the Schaabe in the north are wonderful, and at nearby Kap Arkona, there’s a Schinkel-designed lighthouse with great views of the island.
Schinkel, Germany's master architect, also had a hand in the delightfully gothic hunting lodge at Granitz. Tailor-made for Rapunzel fantasies, the lodge's turreted towers look out on a thick forest, through which the writer Christopher Isherwood wandered in the 1930s, writing up his trip in Goodbye to Berlin. Should you get itchy feet, Hiddensee, a beautiful car-free sister island is a short ferry ride away.
Odds are though, you’ll find yourself increasingly attached to your fold-up wickerwork sofa and the old-school charm of Rügen’s beach resorts. Strandkörbe, incidentally, were almost definitely invented elsewhere, but really, who cares? Rügen is most definitely their spiritual home.
Where to stay and where to eat
Where to stay
Badehaus Goor. 00-49-38-301-88260, hotel-badehaus-goor.de. An elegant colonnaded hotel on the coast near Putbus. Most rooms have balconies or terrasses with a sea view. Doubles from €138.
Pension Haus am See. 00-49-38-393-4200, binz-hausamsee.de. Watch the sun set over the sea at Binz from the balcony of this wooden boarding house. Holiday apartments also available. Doubles including breakfast buffet from €41.
Der Wilde Schwan. 00-49-38-302-8030 or hotel-der-wilde-schwan.de. Peaceful and stylish, Der Wilde Schwan boasts interiors to rival its sea views. Bowling, sauna and horse-riding also on offer. Doubles from €115.
Holiday rentals are plentiful on Rügen. See the German tourism website, germany-tourism.de for listings.
Where to eat
Gastmahl des Meeres. 00-49-38-392-5170. Take a shady table right on the promenade at Sassnitz, and settle back to enjoy Ostsee flounder or, for the more ambitious, local eel stew.
Strandhalle Binz. 00-49-38-393-31564. Oysters and steaks, as well as plentiful fish, prepared by Slow Food member Toni Münsterteicher. There are several smokehouses in Sassnitz and most offer cheap fischbrötchen (smoked fish in a roll) to go.
- ruegen.de