käsegruppe (12. 655)

Of course we like to have a sample of the local culinary heritage when on holiday and while the herbal liquor (Kräuterlikör, Schnapps) from the Müritz might be a unique concoction to try as well as the smoked fish—we learnt that the cheese label, which is fairly common in stores throughout Germany but not certain if we had ever tried it is not a product with a protected geographical indication but rather a style of mild cheeses marketed for its flavour profile, rather than its location—partially to distinguish it from the neighbouring Holsteiner variety that is afforded such legal status—as a German Tilsit (Tilsiter) cheese. Similar in taste and texture to Havarti, cheesemaking practises were introduced to the region of East Prussia by waves of immigration from Switzerland’s Emmental region, fleeing religious persecution and at the bidding of the kingdom’s rulers in order to repopulate Mecklenburg area after a decimating outbreak of the plague in the eighteenth century. The recipe was eventually reimported to Switzerland but the new settlers created distinct styles with the ingredients and conditions of their new home. The method and tradition was named after the dairy operation centred in the city of Tilsit in the former Borussian province, where the original buildings exist to this day—under the rule of the Teutonic Knights from the eleventh through sixteenth centuries there was already a robust cheese-making industry—with not less than seventeen towns and villages named Milchbude, milking stall, in their domain but little standardisation existed beforehand. Once Prussia was formally dissolved and the easternmost lands ceded to the Soviet Union as reparations for World War II, the territories became Kaliningrad oblast and the town on the border with Lithuania renamed Sovetsk (Сове́тск) but retains the name Тильзи́тер for the cheese, also produced in Poland, Estonia and Ukraine.

seenlandschaft (12. 649)

Taking advantage of the forest’s shade for a hot, muggy day, we explored more of the trails along the shores of the Müritz—second only to Lake Constance (der Bodensee) in size and the largest body of water entirely within German borders.

The basin (Seenplatte) with several large bays and inlets kept to paths that did not extend past the tree line in order to preserve the relatively intact ecological history of Europe through the last glacial period, the Ice Age that ended about eleven thousand years ago, with primeval beech and pine woods but afforded observation platforms to look out on to the water.

The landscape that extends to Neustrelitz in the south east in made up of moraines, lowlands—including marshes and meadows—and sandur (Sander, from the Icelandic), the outwash of rocks pulverised to sand by the advance and retreat of glaciers that supports the dense forest, and contains about a hundred lesser lakes. The city of Müritz has two sizeable urban bodies of water and we walked through the spa disctrict (Kurviertel) through the Kurwald—an early realisation of the benefits of forest bathing—to take a look at the Feisneck- and Tiefwarensee.

synchronoptica

one year ago: liquid water discovered on Mars (with synchronopticæ) plus a maximal truth-seeking AI

thirteen years ago: WWII week: Pennemünde plus a chance lilly in a glass   

seentour (12. 648)

H found a habour renting out sports boats for the day in Eldenberg, being on of themain tributaries and outflows for the system of glacial lakes that forms the landscape of the Mecklinburgerisch Seenplatte.

Maneuvering out of the marina, we took a turn in Lake Müritz and saw the palace, a fourteenth century knight’s manor redesigned most recently as a neorenaissance hotel,and boardwalk at Klink on the opposite shore from the campsite. Canals connect the major lakes and also saw Kölpinsee and Fleesensee.

We moored at the little fishing village of Damerow and had lunch at a place specialising in smoked local catch.

H had eel (Aal) but I am still too traumatised by Kurt Vonnegut’s passage in The Tin Drum to try though it did look good. There was a gathered regiment of swans to salute upon returning from a day on the lakes and our little dog was quite the trouper.

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronopticæ) plus lethonomia 

thirteen years ago: WWII week: Berlin

fourteen years ago: counterfeit experiences 

sixteen years ago: diplomas mills  

naturnah (12. 647)

After having explored just a taste of the numerous trails extending from the campgrounds—propose-planned and among the original weekend retreats we learned and organised by outdoors enthusiasts in the 1930s in earnest once vacation time became a statutory right (see also) and with the influx of newcomers to industrial zones, evolving over the decades but still faithful to its charter, we walked along the beach promenade back to Waren.

At first along the chaussee, we passed behind rows of stately villas that buffered the trail from the lake front, since rewilded and access restored to the public.

For the 1936 Berlin Olympics (see previously), Waren constructed this English garden as sort of an early Public Viewing arena at a time when watch parties were not so common.

The way from the beach to the marina and habour was a bit more manicured with a multistorey new development with lawns tended by mowing robots but at least it remained dog-friendly with a stick lending library. We explored the city some more and prepared for the next day’s adventures.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Philadelphia experiment (with synchronopticæ)

thirteen years ago: WWII week: Norway

fourteen years ago: creeping portmanteaux and other unwelcome Americanisms 

fifteen years ago: plugging leaks  

malchow (12.646)

The island settlement central to Slavic paganism up until the twelfth century and the forced conversions of the Wendish and Polabian crusades—hence the dominant Cistercian cloister facing from the mainland (once a retreat for noble women, the former abbey and nunnery is now an organ museum—see also), Malchow straddles the Müritz and the Plauer See with Altstadt connected to a spit of land by a unique draw bridge that swings out hourly to accommodate boat and canoe traffic.

We took a nice stroll through the town, and like other urban areas here, bicycles and pedestrians are very much privileged over cars.

During World War II, it was the location of a dynamite factory of Alfred Nobel Company (the major industry beforehand was towel making) and forced labour was drawn from the nearby concentration camp at Ravensbrück.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronopticæ) plus the invention of hip-hop

twelve years ago: the Prelinger map collection, more flea market finds plus introducing tolls to German roads

thirteen years ago: tending orchids, parishes of trees plus the EU is not the United States of Europe

fourteen years ago: a hotel room in a drainage tube plus the devolution of democracy

fifteen years ago: wildfires in Russia plus geocaching with vintage photos

waren (müritz) (12. 645)

Arriving in the town—not so ancient as its first documented mention suggests by geographer Ptolemy as Virunium, Slavic for the place of crows, the lake‘s name comes from the Wendish meaning German sea, as it was leveled and rebuilt during a succession of wars and revolutions and takes its present form preserving some of the Altstadt after public outcry during DDR times when the city was partially demolished as part of a modernisation effort as one of the four Soviet ballistic theatre nuclear depots in East Germany, Темп-С short range missiles banned under treaties that outlawed intermediate range warheads.

The successful protest to conserve a part of the historic character of Waren (as framed from the marina between the churches of Saint George and Mary)—prior to reunification—was considered a landmark achievement and had lasting repercussions into the future with other preservation and reconstruction programmes, the city’s uneasy balancing act between industry and nature eventually resolved and the place restored as a wellness resort (Kurort) and gateway to the lake district (Mecklenburgerisch Seenplatte). We found a nice pitch at the entrance of the national park in the forest on the shore of lake Müritz, named after the quarter Ecktannen on the outskirts of town.

synchronoptica

one year ago: social media platform formerly known as Twitter suing advertisers for leaving (with synchronopticæ), assorted links worth the revisit plus more isometric renderings

thirteen years ago: buying banking data, werewolf crossing plus bespoke luggage labels

fourteen years ago: a visit to Dresden 

fifteen years ago: corporate bail-outs 

sixteen years ago: agents of the apocalypse  

fürstenberg / havel (11. 896)

Leaving Himmelpforte on the Stolpersee, we headed back slowly towards our home port on Röblinsee for an early departure the next morning.

After the narrows through the Havel, we took the boat around the alcoves that make up the quartet of lakes around the small city (called Wasserstadt) and passed the entrance to the memorial to Ravensbrück concentration camp marked with a posthumously upscaled version of East German sculptor William Lammert die Tragende (Woman with Burden) statue—most of his art destroyed by the Nazis as degenerate and subversive—installed with the opening of the Gedenkstätte in 1959. Exploring Fürstenberg a bit more, we came across a monument to Lenin hidden in the overgrowth in front of the abandoned barracks before venturing to the city centre for dinner at the pier.

konzentrationslager uckermark (11. 894)

H and I took a hike around the forested trail of the Sidowsee out of Himmelpfort and continued along the path back towards Fürstenberg. 

A sub-camp for forced labour of the Ravensbrück Women‘s detention centre, little remains in terms of remembrance for this concentration camp for young girls and women considered difficult or otherwise delinquent for various infractions and were put to work under very harsh conditions (the overseers, Aufseherinnen, were particularly brutal and subject to the Ravensbrücker Prozess by British authorities for war crimes). Girls as young as sixteen produced components for Siemens & Halske for the war effort, including V2 rocket bombs and intercom systems for submarines, and once they aged out at twenty-one, they were transferred to Ravensbrück. 

The juvenile camp was closed at the beginning of 1945 to convert it to an emergency extermination operation with a gas chamber, with some five-thousand female inmates deemed too sick, uncooperative of having outlived their usefulness for slave labour at fifty-two. Of the estimated one hundred thirty thousand women processed through Ravensbrück, the site conserved and memorialised after being liberated by the Soviets in March of 1945 along with the site at Uckermark, some additional fifty thousand perished due to punishingly austere treatment, starvation rations and medical experimentation. Eighty percent were political prisoners (members of the resistance) from all over Nazi occupied territories with a significant population of Jewish, Sini and Roma women imprisoned only for their heritage. Inmates were forced to wear triangles sewn into their uniforms in order to denote their crime and nationality—often in combination—lesbians, prostitutes, Romani (leveled with the accusation of racial pollution) and those who refused to get married were lumped together and wore black triangles.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Operation Nickel Grass (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: a visit to Büdingen, assorted links to revisit plus Victorian mosseries

eight years ago: computer-generated music from Alan Turing 

nine years ago: the inspiration for the Flying Dutchman plus automating laundry

ten years ago: the reasoning behind making Brussels the capital of the EU plus Wikipedia as a major