…another one of the wonderful churches on the island, St. Mary’s in Bergen, a town not too far from where we were staying. We made a short stop over here before we went to hike in the Lancken-Granitz. When we returned to our car, a neat wet little piece of paper stuck on the windscreen welcomed us to the town, and announced that we must pay a parking fine! Hrmph! Not nice, but thankfully it was only 5 euros. Oh well, at least it did not spoil our impressions of this church though. We were amazed at the Romanesque mural art on the walls and ceilings, depicting quite a few biblical motives. What makes it so interesting in these old churches, is the feeling of being transported back in time, and the wonder of how life must have been without modern day technology. A Gothic slide show!

Here the very high arched ceilings with fantastic murals. Don’t be shy, lie on your back, only if you are sure you can get up again, and admire the view! The floors are made of stone and are very cold, mmmm…so maybe not…

After the parking fine shock, we drove over to our hiking starting point at Lancken-Granitz. There are no visible road signs on the main road leading to this little village, so can be difficult to find, but thanks to Capitano Columbus, the driver, we did not get lost. Not far from this village are the famous megalith tombs from the Neolithic era (new stone age). There are seven of these tombs in total.

Further along is the Ziegensteine tomb, or Sieges[steine] (Victory stones). Ziegen actually means goats, but I don’t think that these had anything to do with goats. Ehm…This tomb is also one of the largest megalithic tombs on the island, and erected by farmers and livestock breeders around 3500-1800BC. It is also situated in a very quiet and peaceful part of the forest.

The Stresow Bay with the very remote island of Vilm in the background. It is a protected nature reserve, and strictly closed to constant human presence. Visits to the island are restricted to a maximum of thirty persons per day, so booking in advance is a must.

The entrance to the little village of Gross Stresow (big Stresow) at the bay, with a big welcome painted on the rock. Cute.

One of the many lovely thatched roof houses in the village.

…what a novel idea for a red little buoy. As you see, from this point, Cape Town is ‘only’ 9781 kilometres away!

This is a holiday house, with such a pretty garden, and the bay is only a few metres away.

We took a little break, and, sitting on an upside-down ‘hope-it-will-not-break’ boat, enjoyed the view while munching on our choc-chip cookies. The sun is struggling to peep through the clouds, and the wooden little pier looked a bit too rickety, so no walking on that. Amazing photo, not so??

Aaahh, beautiful! There were so many butterflies in this garden, more than anywhere else we’ve seen on the island. In fact, up to now we’d only seen one or three caterpillars, eeek, and maybe one or three butterflies. There were also quite a lot of hornets buzzing amongst them, all enjoying the rotting fruits of a pear tree. The amazing photographer braved the buzz-buzzing of those yellow-striped kamikazes, and managed to take this wonderful snapshot of Madame B., casting her shadow over the pole. It was not easy to get such an amazing snapshot! Awesome!

Delicious red apples for the postman?? A mouth-watering apple tree with an overfull post box, still in Gross Stresow.

A view of the village of Gross Stresow in the background. We walked all the way from there, along this very narrow shoreline of the bay (this was probably the widest part!). We sank in the way too soft sand, we paddled in the water, we crawled and fought our way through the reeds, we climbed over rocks and stones. Another day in paradise? You bet!

Hair. Hair. My beautiful hair! …a home for fleas, yeah…a hive for bees, oh yeah…a nest for birds, well hmmm…there ain’t no words for the beauty, the splendor, the wonder of my…Hair. Hair. Hair…Is this baby cute or not??

…and I can talk too, but at the moment I’m a little hoarse…giggle…giggle…

…snuffle up my little one! What a lovely privilege to witness this tenderness between the two. There were other horses in the paddock, but only these two were inquisitive enough to stay with us. The others turned their backs on us when they realised that we had nothing yummy-yum for them to nibble on.

Excuse me Sir, but do you have a mint? Ace Venturarah canoodling with Brown Beauty. …baby…oh oh baby, my sweet baby…cootchie cootchie coo…

After the fun with the loving horses, we reached the ‘only-has-one-street’ fishing village of Neu Reddevitz. It is surrounded on three sides by water, and is in the biosphere reserve of south eastern Rügen. It has a lovely little stony beach, all 5 metres of it. At the distance (top left of photo) is Gross Stresow, where we walked from. So far, far away. Impressive.

The main and only street in the village. There are a lot of lovely little thatched roof houses, which are mainly used as holiday homes.

…here one of the houses getting a face-lift! Apparently it costs a lot of money to re-roof these houses, and it has to be repeated every ten to twenty years or so. Also not good if there’s a fire!

On our way back to Lancken-Granitz, over the Teschenberg, with the Stresow Bay in the background. Is this not a fantastic landscape photo? Spectacular!

A view of the village of Lancken-Granitz. There’s a solid wooden bench over here where one can sit and admire the all-round view of the fields and the village in front, and listen to the chirping birds in the little forest at the back. We were almost at our destination. A wonderful end to another adventurous day. Hee-haw!