Warnemunde

Many travelers embrace the opportunity to visit Berlin from the port in Warnemunde. We all know about 20th Century history that unfolded in Berlin through movies, news stories and history classes, but while planning our trip, we decided we didn’t want to take the three hour trip to visit that important city.

Instead, we would explore the former East German towns of Warnemunde and nearby Rostock. We made the easy walk into Warnemunde, and my first impression of the town was that it would not measure up to the villages we visited the two previous days. I must admit wondering if we should have gone to Berlin, since two days in quaint villages made the idea of a big city rich in history sound quite tempting.

After cutting through town on what seemed to be the main street, we turned down a street lined by mansions converted to bed and breakfasts. Considering this had formerly been East Germany, I can only assume these large houses must have been vacation homes for well-connected politicians.

We walked toward the beach. Across the street from the long, wide beach were beach resort hotels. In sand were rental chairs with hoods, none of which faced the green sea.

Tourists in this part of Europe apparently valued facing the sun more than the sea. The breeze coming off the ocean was cool and brisk, making the chair placement seem more logical.
Jay and Amy climbed up in a playground ship made of rope, not so much looking to relive their childhoods as use the ropes like hammocks to relax.


We hiked up the boardwalk and then along a jetty wall toward a green lighthouse.

That brought us to the marina, which proved to be the wonderful heart of Warnemunde. In the movie “Gladiator,” Russell Crowe would pick up a handful of dirt and smell it before a battle. As you may have noticed, throughout this trip, at some point in every destination, I similarly picked up a beer mug filled with a local brew and drank it.

For Warnemunde, I tasted Rostock, a rich, delicious dark beer with a hint of honey. Radeberger was the choice of the other beer drinkers, and for some reason our waiter gave me a half pint and the others a pint.

Where Crowe was ready for battle after smelling dirt, I was ready to sink a metaphoric anchor after my Rostock. Nothing sounded better to me than sitting at this quaint sidewalk cafe overlooking the harbor and watching the world go by.

Instead, we finished our drinks and headed to the train station. Since the ship was literally right there, we decided to go onboard for a bathroom break and quick lunch.

When Jay visited Europe on his backpacking trip, his favorite fast food was curry wurst, so on our way to lunch on the ship, we stopped at a curry wurst stand and sampled that. Jay said it wasn't as good as he remembered, but later in the evening, he found a great one for dinner. After days of big meals, we had relatively light lunches onboard. I had a bowl of gumbo and salad. Not being stoic, I finished the meal with a delicious banana strudel covered in hot chocolate sauce.

We caught the E-Bahn train to Rostock. It turned out we could have boarded the train right in Warnemunde rather than walking past the ship to a confusing station down a path, but then we wouldn’t have had the excuse to stop at the ship for lunch.

Rostock has a rich history, having been a member of the Hanseatic League over 700 years ago, and there are some interesting sites including a wall from the 14th Century and a church with a large pipe organ.

It’s a mid-sized city, and there’s supposed to be good shopping but noisy construction with jackhammers marred the experience. We had coffee at a cafe by the 14th Century wall and then headed back to Warnemunde.

The day had flown by, however, and Julie and I had plans to join Darlene and Brooks for dinner at Sabatini’s, one of the premium restaurants on Emerald Princess where they charge a reservation fee of $20 per person. A few days earlier, Darlene and Brooks had tried Sabatini’s and become hooked. They generously treated us to this meal, which would be their last dinner on the cruise, since they would be debarking early in Helsingor rather than returning to Copenhagen.

It’s not hard to understand why they loved this dining experience. The deluxe restaurant is gorgeous and uncrowded. The service is nothing short of superb, as they bring around dish after dish of appetizers from which you can choose sun dried tomatoes, shrimp, parmesan cheese chunks, sardines, red peppers, calimari and much more. I think Brooks and I sampled them all. My entree was Mustard Crusted Sea Bass, seasoned and cooked to perfection. I was too stuffed to choose one of the outstanding deserts.

After dinner, Julie headed back into town, and Brooks wanted some quiet time, but Darlene expressed an interest in seeing the show, so she and I headed to watch “Motor City,” a singing and dancing extravaganza featuring the great music of Motown. That was music we loved as kids, so its not surprising that we loved the show.

As luck would have it, there was a huge festival the day we were in Warnemunde, with fireworks scheduled for the evening during our sail away. When Julie returned to the ship, she and I watched from the railing on another deck as boats and ships of various sizes jockeyed for position in the harbor, all accompanied to the booming music of Wagner and other German composers blasted over a huge PA system on shore as well as from the ship’s outdoor speakers.

We saw many near misses and had fun waving at the passengers on other ships, but the fireworks didn’t start before we pushed off. We thought we would miss them, but then we heard booming sounds, so we headed to the other side of the ship, and sure enough, the sky was filled with terrific showers of sparkles. It capped off another terrific day on the cruise aboard the Love Boat.