Sassnitz

Here in Germany, the Easter holiday is a four-day weekend. (Both Good Friday and Easter Monday are holidays.) Iva and I decided to take advantage of the days off by visiting Rügen Island on the Baltic coast. This is a popular vacation spot for Germans, especially in the summertime. It was very interesting to be in a "tourist" location, and be the only ones speaking English! In fact, a lot of fun!

We based ourselved out of the town of Sassnitz, located in the NE part of Rügen, and only two trains away from Berlin. There is even a specially discounted train ticket for travel to the coast - the Ostsee Ticket - of which we took advantage.

Sassnitz is full of classy old "Villas" decked out in the 1930's "Spa Style". Rather than hotel rooms, most of the rooms are apartments, designed to be rented out for the week. Here is Iva on the porch of our room in Villa Melanie.


A quick side note - one fun thing I liked about Easter here in Germany is the tradition of decorating "Easter Trees". Here is a typical decorated tree in a garden in Sassnitz.



Sassnitz developed as a fishing village and still has an active fishing fleet. Here is a view of the cute harbor where fishing boats compete with cruising ships for moorage. A number of boats sold fresh and smoked fish right on the dock - Yum!


Here's a big classy hotel on the Sassnitz waterfront...


... and a row of fun cafes by the Harbor.


Finally, we couldn't resist getting a photo of this advertisement on a bus. I particularly like the motto "Come Hungry, Leave Happy"!