[P.P.A.]

I shall be visiting the Dutchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the Dutchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the Margraviate of Brandenburg, and Swedish Pomerania until next Saturday and will depart tomorrow morning. (Actually I think they are the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland now, but you can't expect me to stay updated on those territorial changes of the last 200 years!)
I don't know yet whether I will have internet access there or not, but even if so I probably won't be able to spend much time on it, lest so on IRC.

[Aitamen]

here will be the chronicles of the travels of PPA!

[Cort]

here will be the chronicles of the travels of PPA!

The Chronicles of The Travels of PPA: the Dutchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the Dutchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the Margraviate of Brandenburg, and Swedish Pomerania

[P.P.A.]

I'll take photos and post them here when I come back!

[Cort]

PPA Have fun on your Travel

[P.P.A.]

Alright, I'm departing. Bye everyone, if I'm able to I'll post again when I've arrived.

[P.P.A.]

Arrived in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and am using a crappy mobile phone network to go online right now.
It's very rural and very empty and natural here. But the silence is wonderful!

Also Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony which I passed through on my 6-hour ride sort of look like the Netherlands, except with elevation.

[Cort]

Arrived in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and am using a crappy mobile phone network to go online right now.
It's very rural and very empty and natural here. But the silence is wonderful!

Also Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony which I passed through on my 6-hour ride sort of look like the Netherlands, except with elevation.

AMAZING!!!

To be continue on next chapter!!! lol

[P.P.A.]

Neubrandenburg is rather unimpressive, but going there was a mostly spontaneous decision anyway. It did have two quite impressive Brick Gothic churches and a nice city all including city portals, two of which were particularly good-looking. The rest was post-war GDR buildings though and rather unappealing.

I'll post pictures of the more charming parts once I get back home on Saturday and have proper internet again.

[P.P.A.]

And the afternoon I spent visiting a Renaissance castle/mansion (how do you accurately translate "Schloss"?) in Güstrow. There was a museum inside, with Gothic paintings and sculpture in the basement, German and Dutch Renaissance art in the base floor, and various ornate hunting firearms as well as coins from various periods in the first one. Along with a dance hall, where I could identify half of the coat of arms already withut having to look at the engravings next to them. Actually I didn't even notice the latter until I had already given my father a lecture on the origin on some of the CoA's elements, haha.

also lol "BRANTENBVRGK"

[P.P.A.]

Stralsund is awesome. I visited the old town, and there were a lot of beautiful Brick Gothic and Northern Renaissance buildings throughout its charming streets. I saw the Baltic Sea for the first time in my life there as well! Once I'm back home I'll post pictures, aside from (especially one of) the three churches and the town hall there were many a pleasurable stone- and brick-crafted sight.

Speaking of the town hall though, in its front there were engraved a handful of coats of arms. While most were obviousl, like the one of Stralsund itself or the Pomeranian gryphon, there one one that still bothers me. It presented a sable, double-headed eagle on Or (or I think it was Or, the colours had wilthered after the hundreds of years; might have been argent), which would have meant that it was the coat of arms of a Holy Roman Emperor. Yet on its chest it had an escutcheon, vertically split in either azure, gules or even vert (again, hard to tell as the colour had come off a bit; being colourblind doesn't help, although my father couldn't tell either) and below it, Or. BUT I DON'T KNOW ANY HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR WHO HAD ANY SUCH A COAT OF ARMS AND IT BOTHERS ME
Pics once I get home, although I doubt anyone here would know.
EDIT: GAAH UPON CLOSER INSPECTION OF THE PHOTO I TOOK I NOTICED THE TOP HALF OF THE INNER COAT OF ARMS HAS A PATTERN BUT I CAN'T SEE WHAT SORT OF FUR, if it's one, IT IS AND LESS SO THE COLOURS IT'S MADE OF

Afterwards my father wanted to take a small trip to the island of Rügen, to which a large (modern) bridge led. We failed to see the open sea though (as in the harbour of Stralsund it was a rather enclosed area between Rügen and the continent, only partially leading into the open), but we somehow landed in what I assume to be the tiniest place ever (5-7 hourses, 2-3 of which were decaying) in the middle of fields (which caused me to develop hay fever reactions again) and only reachable through a very badly maintained path. On the map it looked like it'd have a connection to the see and also be bigger, but that was an illusion! :(
Still it was sort of hilarious as I'm sure it was a place no man had ever set foot on before. Or at least no West German.

[Cort]

PPA try a small book on his travels! It would be great, save such beautiful memories!!!  =D

[P.P.A.]

Yesterday I returned from a 2-day trip to Poland. I spent an afternoon in Szczecin/Stettin, slept in a hotel there, and the next day visited Stargard Szczecinski.

Stettin was a bit disappoitning; while in the evening and after some internet research I realised that I missed a third of the city somehow which just happened to be the part I was most interested in, the old town, the rest was quite depressing anyway. Giant wide streets, a lot of decayed and run down houses, and only a few restored older buildings in between the unpleasant looking post-war 50s housing blocks. It did have some really nice parts though, like part of the promenade at the Oder which was enriched by a museum within a giant neoclassicistical palace a bit higher up; there also was a lot of green, with parks being plentiful. Still, I wouldn't overly recommend it.

Stargard Szczecinski on the other hand was kind of nice. It was a small town, and there were too a lot of  large more modern and ugly block-buildings. But its core, which still had some older Northern Renaissance and Brick Gothic buildings and churches in between the cheap housing establishments, was still partially surrounded by city walls in which there were embedded a handful of nice towers. This wall in turn was in the middle of a large, circular park,which was also host to a few churches and towers, as well as a statue of Johl Paul II.

Overall, I think I could say Poland is pretty... "rough". A lot of the buildings, old and new, are in a bad condition and the nature is quite untamed. Compared to what comes on the German side of the border there's a lot less cultivated land, and large forests and wild vegetation dominate the sight when driving along the also not that well maintained roads. It's not bad though, and it was an interesting trip overall.

[P.P.A.]

I visited Greifswald in the morning, it was a pleasant surprise. The city is very bright and open, it's got a lot of well-maintained Nothern Renaissance and Jugendstil/Biedermeier buildings with a few Brick Gothic ones inbetween. The city's centre is very nice, with cars having to drive around it and two large plazas forming its core. Old buildings go hand in hand with newer post-war ones, which look actually great.
Usually these houses clash with older ones in cities and usually look ugly, however some, despire being modern, retain the feel of the older ones and fit in very nicely in the overall image. And ones that would look bad per se have been touched up with colours and ornaments to also harmonise with the rest of the city. The small port at the river with the lot of old ships tied up was splendid as well.
Truly a small gem!

[P.P.A.]

Rostock was... eh, rather uninteresting. There wasn't really anything to see aside from a street forming the coreof the city, which was lined with Northern Renaissance and Jugendstil buildings, with the highlights being a giant palace and the city hall.
Aside from these two most of the buildings were sadly host to prominently advertised stores like McDonalds, O², Vodafone, McPaper etc etc. I really detest globalisation and its assimilation of every city's commercial identity.
There also was a church which had solar panels on the roof... and as we drove closer we noticed it had balconies and windows embedded in its roof. A Brick Gothic ecclesial monument that had its function changed to be the host of apartments and flats was truly as bewildering sight. Too bad I failed to take any photos of it, as the perspectiive from which I saw it was disadvantageous, and unlike expected I didn't come past it on the way back. :(

It was raining until near the end, which was a first. Up until today, and with the exception of very brief rainshowers when it was irrelevant anyway, I have been blessed with a warm but not hot sunny weather ever since I arrived.

I also slipped on a metal plate embedded in the floor of a sidewalk which seriously offered no grip whatsoever in its wet state. I ended up falling straight down onto my back! I was a bit shocked afterwards, but otherwise it was an interesting experience, as I am not used to external physical pain (and just yesterday I was becoming curious of how that felt again, seeing as my body hasn't been hurt for a few months or years now (excluding perhaps hitting a door with a toe once in a few months or something))!

[P.P.A.]

I am back from a second trip to Neubrandenburg. When I visited on Sunday I only took pictures of the nice buildings there, but the rest of the city always gave me such strong GDR vibes that I just had to return to also capture the very broad streets (but only partially accessible to cars) streets limited by rows of samey buildings lining their sides, distingushed only by added colour and a few neoclassicistic ornaments. I don't know why, perhaps I've seen photos of Russian cities like that without remembering, but it really gave me a feeling of being in former East Germany. And to complete that, I also saw a Trabbi! Now my trip is truly complete!

Well, I will be returning home tomorrow. Perhaps I'll stop and take a look around Hamburg on the way back though, as we'd pass by it anyway.

[P.P.A.]

After a terrible 7-hour car ride I am back at home! The Rhineland is beautiful! It's great to be here again!

[Aitamen]

wb PPA, your adventure was entertaining to me, at least!

[P.P.A.]

Thanks. I'll deliver pictures after I'll have slept. :O

[P.P.A.]

A small (about a 5th or 10th of the ones I took) selection of the photosat 1/4 their original resolution. Perhaps I'll upload a >3GB RAR of all the ones I have eventually.

http://s782.photobucket.com/albums/yy103/HuCard/

[P.P.A.]

Nicely sorted, and I uploaded some more:

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Deutschland

- Neubrandenburg
http://s782.photobucket.com/albums/yy103/HuCard/Neubrandenburg/

- Schloss Güstrow
http://s782.photobucket.com/albums/yy103/HuCard/Schloss%20Guestrow/

- Stralsund
http://s782.photobucket.com/albums/yy103/HuCard/Stralsund/

- Greifswald
http://s782.photobucket.com/albums/yy103/HuCard/Greifswald/

- Rostock
http://s782.photobucket.com/albums/yy103/HuCard/Rostock/

Polska

- Szczecin
http://s782.photobucket.com/albums/yy103/HuCard/Szczecin/

- Stargard Szczecinski
http://s782.photobucket.com/albums/yy103/HuCard/Stargard%20Szczecinski/hotobucket.com/albums/yy103/HuCard/Greifswald/

- Rostock