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Tour Overview: We rode on the Island of Rügen a year after we completed the second half of the Ostsee Radweg. This happened because our partners on the first half, Guntram and Ulla, wanted to join us on the second half but it was inconvenient. So, we agreed that we would come back the next year. We planned to stay in one place and make day-trips from there, coming back to our accommodation every evening. We quartered ourselves in Lancken, which is on the peninsula of Wittow in the far north of the island. The locals call Wittow an island but since it is connected to the rest of the Rügen by a narrow strip of land (isthmus), I call it a peninsula. One thing for sure, Wittow is windy. Signage: Yes, Virginia, there are path signs - occasionally. But I would not say the signage is great. Nevertheless, it is hard to get lost on the island because there are so many bike paths and low traffic roads that you can always find your way back on track. See Maps and Guidebooks below. Accommodations: There are many opportunities for overnighting. Rügen is a major tourist destination. In addition to frequent campgrounds (for those of you who have not yet discovered the weight difference between a wallet of cash and a tent with a sleeping bag), there are numerous hotels of different qualities (stars?). Additionally, there are many Zimmer and Ferienwohnunen (FeWo), which is plural for Ferienwohnung or vacation apartment. See the Tips page for information about these. Stops: We always say that the stops we like may not be your favorites so take these recommendations with that in mind. We did not see the whole island but I can heartily recommend the following: The Stubnitz chalk cliffs (north of Sassnitz), Kap Arkona, Hiddensee Island. Additionally, I have it on good authority that the resort area both north and south of Ostseebad Binz is beautiful. I also suspect - with no real proof - that the peninsula Mönchgut in the southeast corner of the Rügen is worthwhile. Maps and Guidebooks: On the island in bookstores and tourists shops, there are copies of the Fahrradkarte Rügen & Hiddensee, scale 1:75,000. I found it the best resource, even better than Bikeline’s Ostseeküsten Radweg (Baltic Coast Bike path) Teil 2: Von Lübeck nach Ahlbeck / Usedom, 1/75,000 because you get the whole island, not just the part that covers the Ostsee bike path. Conditions: Expect wind. Did I mention it is windy on Rügen? We were lucky to have great weather but we still encountered a lot of wind. Wind is great when it is a tailwind but bicycling into it is like riding uphill. Another thing to expect is sandy trails. We rode quite a few kilometers on the northern part of the island and about 50% of the time we were on pavement (either low traffic roads or designated bike paths), 25% of the time on well packed gravel or good dirt paths, and 25% of the time on single track paths with some soft sand. The sand, if it has been dry, will grind to a stop even wide tire bicycles. The island of Rügen is just a large pile of sand and gravel leftover from receding glaciers at least 100,000 years ago. There are some hills in the center part and on the southern part of the island but the northern end is mostly flat – except for the chalk cliffs of course. Impressions: Though we bypassed Rügen the first time we rode through Stralsund, I recommend it highly. The chalk cliffs, like the White Cliffs of Dover in England, are impressive. Imbedded in the chalk are pieces of flint. The flint is in definite layers that seem to be 10 to 20 feet apart. Vacationing Germans and locals enjoy collecting flint stones with natural holes in them. They string several of these together with wire or cord as a decoration for their homes and businesses. The island is strewn with flint. As you can imagine, in the gravel roads and on bike paths, flint breaks up a bit, leaving razor sharp shards. Riding over all those shards, I expected to have flat tires but we did not have any. One theory as to why the flint is in strata is that during the Cretaceous period, the animals and sea critters that died left their bones in huge piles on the floor of a shallow sea. This became unconsolidated chalk. Then a layer of rock that became flint was deposited on top of the chalk. Over millions of years, these piles of chalk were lifted to slightly different heights from up thrust pressure. This carried the flint stone to those slightly different heights. During the ice age, glaciers flattened, compressed, and spread out the whole thing into the layers we see today. Think of a stack of books that has fallen over but each book is still resting on its neighbor, then the stack was put under enormous pressure from ice over 1,000 feet thick so that the upper edges are now level but stratified at an angle. The island of Rügen has numerous archeological digs and active archeological investigations. The island has been populated by humans for over 5,000 years. The Slavs pushed out the early settlers around 1,400 years ago. The Slavs belonged to a tribe called the Ranen. After defeat by the Danes in 1168, it was resettled by Germanic tribes including the Danish. Kap Arkona is the site of a Slavic fortification that was attacked by those Danes. At Kap Arkona we hiked the beach from the small fishing village of Vitt around the northeast corner of the cliffs to the next staircase up. It is a distance of about 3 kilometers. The beach is mostly flint with a few fieldstones. For someone who is a member of the Over Fifty with Bad Knees Club, it is a tough 3 kilometers. There is no path and the rocks are hard on your knees and feet. But the view is worth it. There is very little tide difference in the area and part of the hike is close to some erosion protection stonework over which you are not suppose to walk. However, the option of walking on slippery moss wet rocks in the sea is very dangerous so we violated the rules and walked on the stonework for 200 feet. Sue me but we did. At the Stubnitz chalk cliffs (north of Sassnitz on the peninsula of Jasmund) we hiked along the top of these chalk cliffs too. These cliffs are even more impressive than those at Kap Arkona. It is an 8 kilometer hike from Sassnitz to Königsstuhl; from there you can catch a bus back to Sassnitz. The hike is up and down some 30 to 50 feet but there are stairs for the steepest parts. On Rügen as on the mainland of northern Europe you will find many Dolmens or “Hügelgräber” or “Grossteingräber” in German. These are graves of people from the early Stone Age and are marked with large fieldstones. One finds them frequently on high points of land. On maps they are frequently indicated as an archeological site. I don’t know how many of these there are in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern but there are over 900 of these graves in northern Schleweg-Holstein alone. Interestingly, the stones used to mark these graves weigh thousands of pounds. How were they moved from their original location to the grave site by Stone Age people who had no backhoes? Or, did they? If I were an undertaker back then, I’d haul the body to a place where the stones already were – but that is just me. Hiddensee is an island on the west side of the island of Rügen. There are no cars on the island (with a few exceptions, as always) so we either take bikes, or rent them there, or walk. Those are your choices. Even the locals have to use pull carts when the move heavy things (even groceries) from one place to another. Hiddensee has its own history and is certainally a place to experience. Beaches on Rügen and Hiddensee are great but the water can be chilly in the spring. Bathing suits are optional. That is probably a good thing for hot and sweaty bicyclists; I would not know for sure. There does not seem to be any areas set aside for nude bathing like other beaches we have seen in Germany. Much of northern Europe has a completely different attitude about suits than we prudes in the USA have. That's a good thing too. Typical of buildings in the north of Germany, churches are made mostly of brick but here they mix in some field stones right into the walls. The style is early Gothic and the alters are detailed and beautifully carved and painted. Most are open daily, worth a stop if you pass one. |
