Trip 38 — Usedom Walk

Day 3: Koserow to Karlshagen via Peenemünde
Wednesday, 15 November 2023

Today: 36549 steps/28.80 km/17.90 mi/5h 20m
Total: 74059 steps/58.00 km/36.04 mi/10h 55m

After trying the three kinds of honey and three kinds of herring — but not all in one mouthful — at the Hotel Hanse Kogge's breakfast buffet, I stepped out into a misty drizzle that soon disappeared. I walked up Koserow's main street and turned left onto a bicycle path parallel to the beach.

I soon reached Usedom's narrowest point, a spit about 300 meters wide between the Baltic Sea and the Achterwasser, an irregularly shaped lagoon connected to the sea by the Peenestrom strait. The splotchy shape of Usedom and the waters that eat into it are the result of the movement of glaciers, earth, and sand due to wind and currents during and since the last ice age, about 18,000 years ago.

Usedom's shape — sort of like half a butterfly, with the other half being Wolin island to the east — means there are lots of bits of land that jut into the sea and the Achterwasser. They aren't quite peninsulas, because there's no real main land that they connect to, but they are significant. The northwesternmost is Peenemünde, which I reached via a long walk through the forest interrupted in the middle by the Zinnowitz promenade.

I came out of the forest and had just a short distance to go before meeting Reiner. Tours are given of Peenemünde's restricted area, and I'd booked ahead for an explanation in English. The meeting place was near Peenemünde's airport, which has sightseeing flights in the summer. Once again, the light was spectacular on the birches through what had become a partly cloudy sky.

I found Reiner one minute before our scheduled meeting time. He grew up in East Germany but close enough to the border that his family could receive West German signals, so he heard about space exploration and developed an interest in rockets. He moved to Usedom with his ailing mother about 20 years ago so she could take advantage of the healthier climate. He had retired from his career in electronics and now can focus on Peenemünde's rocket history and restoring the machinery.

I hadn't realized when I'd booked the tour that it would involve driving. I also didn't know I'd be the only visitor. But I decided that, as with Juan's personal tour of the banana plantations on Tenerife, it didn't violate the spirit of the Abecedarian Walks to take this kind of excursion. What was I going to do, make Reiner walk it?

Peenemünde was built from 1936 to 1938. Roughly half the town was for the air force, the other half for the army, both for the testing of munitions. On the way to the meeting point, I'd passed the guardhouse and the defunct railway terminus, where 5000 people would arrive each day.

Near the meeting point, Reiner took me through a gate to what had been stables (now a museum in development), a rabbit farm (for the staff's particularly warm coats), and a sheep farm (living lawn mowers). Another gate, which he called Polanski Gate, was left when the film director shot some of the scenes for "The Ghost Writer" in the restricted area.

Wernher von Braun came in 1938, and he was the technical director of the development of V-1 flying bombs and V-2 rockets, which — fueled by 4.5 tons each of alcohol and liquid oxygen — had a range of 250 to 320 kilometers and could reach their destinations in five minutes. That set the most distant target at Danzig in what is now Poland. Much of the work was done as forced labor; the remains of a concentration camp are nearby. The planned rocket capable of reaching the USA was never realized; a 28-meter-high building was devoted to developing it.

After a series of Allied bombings of Peenemünde beginning in August 1943, Germany moved its rocket development to the mainland and underground, closer to its targets. In 1945, the Soviets took over the area, and they demolished what was left of the hundred buildings and the infrastructure; only a few ruins remain. The wall around the central testing area can still be made out, as can a hydrant and part of the foundations supporting the machinery. The craters from the Allied bombings are visible. A marker indicates where the V-2 tests were carried out; a hole in another area is the site of the launch pad for antiaircraft missiles.

In 1960, Peenemünde went to the hands of East Germany, who used it for the repair of MiG fighters and automobiles.

"Do you see that apple tree?" Reiner said. "Wernher von Braun liked apples. Once he finished an apple and threw it over there. Eighty years later, we have a tree."

I was skeptical.

"But the apples from the tree are very hard and sour. We took one of the apples to get Wernher von Braun's DNA."

I raised an eyebrow. I also resisted the urge to make a quip about von Braun being a bad apple.

"I save that story for the American visitors," Reiner said, laughing.

I laughed too. "I was going to say, I don't think that's how the science works."

We finished our tour and I walked past the airport and into town. A V-2 rocket is parked outside the history and technology museum, which I regrettably didn't have time to visit.

If you're planning to spend the night in Peenemünde, Wednesday is absolutely the worst night you can choose. The town has one hotel, and it takes Wednesdays off, which means one cannot check in or eat in its restaurant on that day. The only spot for dinner on a Wednesday is Italian.

The other places to stay are all private houses or apartments of the kind you find on Airbnb. Some of these advertise on Booking.com, which is my usual first stop if I need a place off the beaten track. I'd found one such apartment called Richter's, and it happened to be next door to the hotel. I'd booked and prepaid for the room in August and they'd confirmed it, along with my arrival time, the following day.

After leaving Reiner I'd messaged Richter's on the Booking.com chat to say I'd be arriving at 3:30. They never responded, but I had a phone number. When I arrived, I messaged them on WhatsApp and then via SMS, and when I still didn't hear anything after a few minutes I tried to call them. They rejected the call.

They did message me a few minutes later, saying that the previous tenant had taken the key, they didn't have a spare, they were waiting for the locksmith, and I should go somewhere else and they'd refund the night.

A phone number was posted at the hotel next door; I took a chance and messaged them to see whether maybe they were there after all, but they didn't respond. There were other private apartments on Booking.com. They all advertised rooms around the same price as Richter's — €65 — but when I proceeded to the booking page I was given absurd add-ons such as a €120 cleaning fee or a €25 property service charge per stay or a €30 linen fee per stay, sometimes more than one of the above. Just on principle I won't do this. Show me the whole amount up front; otherwise you're lying. I won't even stay at hotels where I'd be charged resort fees.

I discovered later that if I'd had access to wi-fi while I was standing in front of Richter's, I'd have seen the full prices from the start. Germany is one of those sensible countries where prices are listed inclusive of taxes and fees. But I was roaming and thus subject to the USA's lax policy on the matter. California is at least catching up, soon requiring full disclosure of junk fees. Hopefully the rest of the country — and the world — will catch on.

I try to treat setbacks as opportunities. I didn't have to stay in Peenemünde. I could go to the next town and find a proper hotel. The problem was that it was after 4:00, the sun had set (not that I could tell, with the cloud cover), and the next town was an hour and a half away on a track through a marsh. And Booking.com was having server issues. But getting a head start on tomorrow's walk, which was slated to be exceptionally long, was an appealing prospect.

The point was to get there; I could figure out which hotel later. I hurried out of Peenemünde and was soon on the dirt track. Twilight was long, and I could see well enough to avoid the puddles on the track. Immediately to my right, parallel to the track, was a narrow lane of water. I felt like I was walking through the Everglades. Every couple of minutes, something would jump out of the water, and I'd jump in reaction before remembering that there are no alligators on Usedom and the noise had probably come from a cormorant or a heron or a similarly large bird.

I saw no one else for over an hour except a cyclist. I tried to figure out my lodging. There were two main possibilities. The Hotel Nordkap wasn't too far out of my way, but all of the booking sites, including its own, said there were no rooms available. The Hotel Friesenhof was more likely to take me but it was a couple of kilometers in the wrong direction. It was almost too cold for my fingers to type and almost too dark for me to see without using the flashlight. I decided to wait until I had to make the choice.

I came to that figurative and geographical junction next to what looked like a power plant. I nervously called the Nordkap. I speak enough German to ask whether there's a single room available for tonight but not enough that I'm going to understand the response if it's anything other than yes or no with the price recited at a pace suitable for a first-grader.

"I'm sorry, I have very little German," I said. "Do you have a single room for tonight?"

The answer included the number "three" and lots of words I didn't pick up.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand. Do you have a room?"

"Yes." She said a few more things and then I made out "When will you be arriving?"

"Twenty minutes."

I understood the price, a reasonable €78 that included breakfast. "Thank you very much."

"You speak good German!"

"Thank you," I said, nervously laughing.

When I arrived, it was someone else who took care of me. "You called?" he asked.

"Yes."

He spoke with the clear overpronunciation I needed, and it's always easier to understand things in person than on the phone anyway. We went through the formalities.

"You speak good German," he said.

"Thanks. I need to practi...." The word starts the same in so many languages. "Praktikeren...praktieren..."

"Praktizieren?"

"That's it!"

He charged me only €66.50 — almost exactly the charge at Richter's. And here the breakfast is included, I'm an hour closer to tomorrow's destination, and I can even see the hourly trains on the Zinnowitz-Peenemünde branch of the Spa Railway from my window. I just hope I don't have to fight for that refund.

Go on to day 4