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My travel in Europe:
By train in Northern Germany, 2022

Content:

Day 14, Hamburg to Schwerin:

Hamburg was only a one day stop, today we take the train to Schwerin.

Here is a map of our move from Hamburg to Schwerin:

No change of trains on this route, 1 hour and twenty minutes and 115 km.

Hamburg HBF:

We eat breakfast at the hotel as usual. Gunilla looks out through the windows and got shocked, the street is full of vans with polices and they have machine guns, what is happening ? We ask the waiter, he says: it's the normal morning procedure.

Travel in Northern Germany by ferry, buses and trains, 2022

We finished the breakfast quickly, better to go to a smaller town ! We have the railway station across the street and we walk over to it with our luggage. The view of the railway station's roof is impressive.

We are here 40 minutes before the train depart, we know from the train to Hamburg that it could be a lot of people on the train. We use the time to take a walk around in the railway station.

Here we have entered the second hall. Gunilla found footprints on the floor, I see them too but don't think much of it. Gunilla says excitedly, Harry Potter, he's wearing his invisibility cloak! We follow the tracks and end up in a Harry Potter shop, Gunilla looks around and goes up to the second floor. She comes down after a while and says, station 9 3/4 was up there. I, who have never seen a Harry Potter film, understand nothing.

Here is more information about Hamburg Hauptbahnhof:

https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Hamburg Hauptbahnhof (Hamburg Hauptbahnhof, Wikipedia)

I looked at the clock, oh no, it's only twenty minutes left until the train depart. Now we are late and rush down to the train platform. The train is already full, we get worried, will there be any space for us ? Yes we got on the train fast as we are now after practicing train travel two weeks. But no seats, at least a space we could stand at in one end of the carrier.

Schwerin:

We were very lucky because at the nearest seat to us two boys get off the train after twenty minutes. They leave their girlfriends which continue further. I asked them if they know why there are so many people on the train, I think they say that it was a festival at Rostock. They didn't understand English very well, strange because they were teenagers.

We have here got off the train, we are at Schwerin but one station earlier than what was planned for.

Gunilla had check the Google map and found that it's better to get off at Scwerin Mitte, not Schwerin HBF.

What, a Sweden party at Schwerin ! But it's after we are gone from here. While we walking towards our hotel we noticed that there are no people out on the streets and no restaurants or markets. Was this town a mistake to stay at, or ?

Gunilla looks a bit tired until we found a coffee shop at a hotel, look so happy she is now with a cup of coffee.

From the coffee shop it wasn't a long walk to the hotel, the hotel's name is Hotel Elefant. It's the yellow house on the left side. First we were not sure if it was the right hotel. The facade is under renovation and most of the signs on the facade was down. But the address was correct. We have booked two nights at this hotel, we have to stay here until our ferry from Rostock to Stockholm arrive two days later.

We couldn't get our room until later because we were a bit early, but we could check in and leave our luggage. After that we could walk out to recognize what we can do in this town. Nice looking houses and gardens is the first we see.

Schwerin Castle:

Follow the street around the corner of the hotel and get to the lake Burgsee. On the other side of the lake we see the castle we have read about, what beautiful. This town was for sure no mistake to stay at !

Then we find the business street where everything happens in this city, Mecklenburgstrasse.

There is some kind of festival going on in the city, that explains why it was so empty of people in other places.

Today was once again a very hot day, but we know a solution to that, ice cream !

Dom St. Marien und St. Johannes. We found this church in one of the alleys and it's as usually a Maria Church, there is one in every town.

Now we are going towards the man-made lake Pfaffentelch, that is the place where something is going on. We hear a loud sound from that direction.

On the western side of the lake is the Innenministerium Mecklanburg. Here we sit down for a while and watching at the rowing boat races. There are about 20 girls in each boat, one girl beating the beat of a drum. In another boat is a lot of boys rowing the boat but still they have a girl that control the pace with her drum. They scream violently at each other and try to push the pace to win. There are a lot of tents with food and drinks at the pier.

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We leave the boat race after a while, it was a bit too loud there. Walking now at the street Fredrichstrasse, we see an abandoned old building, we can read that's planned to be a hotel after renovation.

Rathaus:

After walking around in the alleys we came to the Markplatz and the Rathaus. To the left is also the tourist center where we later got some maps and ideas what to do at this town.

Panoramic view of the Marktplatz. Even Schwerin was controlled by the Swedish together with Stralsund and some other places in Germany, it was during the 17th century. We couldn't find any traces of that as we could at Stralsund.

We leave the Marktplatz and turn in at smaller streets and enjoy the beautiful old buildings.

Hotel Elefant:

After three hours we were back to the hotel and now we could get our room. Now want to investigate its secrets.

The staff collected our luggage which they have stored and we take the elevator to our rooms. We got a room at the top of the attic, third floor. When going down later we take the staircase, always good to know where it is if something happens.

The hotel has a backyard, it's cozy here. There are furniture so you can sit here and have something to drink or some takeaway food. There is a restaurant at the hotel, but only open two days a week. Soft drinks, beers and wine can be found in the refrigerator, you make a note on a list and pay when you check out.

We sat here for a while planning what to do next. The lovely sound from the fountain creates a peaceful atmosphere.

There are also vegetables grown here, is it paprika, or ?

Here is more information about the Hotel Elefant:

https://www.hotel-elefant.de/ (Hotel Elefant)

We decided to take a bus or tram to study the Schwerin HBF railway station. When we arrived we got off at the Schwerin Mitte railway station which was closer to the hotel.

The bus came first and we take it to the square in front of the railway station. It goes direct and only took five minutes.

Schwerin HBF:

We want to be prepared to the day when we leave Schwerin, no mistakes. Same style as other railway stations we have visited in Germany. We go inside and into the information desk. Talk to the ladies in English, they didn't understand, but Gunilla can speak a little bit German and after some minutes we have the information. This is the correct station when later take the train to Rostock.

After we had visit the train station, we go down to the shopping street and follow it to the man-made lake that ends the old town. Now it is almost completely empty of people here, the dragon boat competitions are over and all the restaurant tents have been dismantled. On the map we have seen that there are boats that can take one to various stops around the lake, but we never found any. On the other side of the lake a school.

Innenministerium Mecklenburg-Vorpommerna Arsenal am Pfaffenteich.

In the evening, hungry again and it's time to find a restaurant. Walking around close to the MarktPlatz where we saw nice looking restaurants earlier this day.

At the street Puschkinstrasse we found a restaurant that we liked. They have Swedish special dishes. Gunilla orders a plate of Food herring and I order two plates, one with Taco and one with Tapas. Tasted very good but it was a bit too much. They also had a Swedish special ice cream, but we were too full to eat even that.

We see through the alley that the castle is illuminated by the evening sun and appears to be made of gold. We have to see that more closely. It will be a bit of a walk again with aching feet and legs.