Stralsund and Rügen

One day in May 2012, we took Paul's family a couple hours to the east to see the white cliffs on the island of Rügen and have a half day in the coastal city of Stralsund.

It's good I'm writing about this because these aren't really places that your average tourist would have ever heard about (and so I may have forgotten about them in the future), but in Germany (particularly former East Germany), they're pretty well known as holiday destinations.

Rügen especially, with its small national park protecting its chalk cliffs, was very popular, particularly in the 19th and early 20th century, as a place to "take the air" and visit the seaside.  Maybe comb the beach for some of that ubiquitous Baltic amber always washing up on shore.

And for us, living so much in the city with no car, getting out to see forests and beaches and a serious lack of concrete was just a wonderful relief.

We made our way back to the mainland and Stralsund for the express purpose of seeing the new Ozeaneum aquarium.  Because, I mean, Paul and the whole marine biology thing and Paul's brother and his whole marine biology thing.  It was just going to happen.

And really, if you randomly find yourself in Mecklenburg-Pomerania, you should go see the Ozeaneum.  It's fancy.

********
I'm counting down the days until my third anniversary of living in Europe by recapping trips that I never got around to highlighting.  You can see the list of trips (and links to them as they are written) here.