European Holiday

After we arrived in Rostock in the late evening after a very well appreciated meal at McDonalds on the autobahn, we are ready to continue our trip across Germany by heading north to the city of Bad Doberan.

In Bad Doberan we started the day out by meeting the Vice-President of the LBV, Detlef Kurreck. From there we went on a tour of the Bad Doberaner Munster cathedral. This is a cathedral that had its origins in the 13^th century after it was founded by monks. Through the years, it was built and rebuilt into the building it is today with the cathedral now standing for longer than the USA has been a country. It later became a favorite of one of Germany’s royal family.

The cathedral was absolutely beautiful built in the classic gothic style it had pointed arches throughout the building. On the inside many of the original furnishings remained. The prayer boxes of the monks were still in their place, something many of the cathedral of have had removed from them never to return.

As we were guided around, we learned that many of a royal family were buried within the church. Many of them had statues made of ok place to commemorate them. They were exquisite pieces of art that were distinct from the rest of the architecture of the church.

The Molly

From the cathedral, we had a brief walk to the “Molly.” Molly was an older style train on a single track that took us to the Baltic Sea. After a brief ride across the countryside, we arrived in Heligendam and the Baltic Sea. We all took a few steps into the cold water just to say we had been in it, but it was a very relaxing time for us to just kick back, stroll along the beach, and pretend like we were on holiday. We grabbed lunch by the ocean before we were off to see more German ag.

McCloy Fellows in Baltic Sea. 

Baltic Sea Selfie

While at lunch our next host joined us, Jochen Walter, and we headed for his farm. Here we saw them packing silage, stood under a wind tower, saw a newly build dairy as well as one that was built by the German Democratic Republic. The differences are night and day with the latter being completely enclosed and needing a special conveyor system to feed the cattle while the modern dairy is like most you would see in the States today. Mt. Walter also showed us how they deal with slurry form the dairy. Instead of trucking it around the farm, they built pipes underground and connect a hose to a special slurry spreader. While this isn’t typical of German farms, it was quite interesting to see.

The last stop on the farm was a historic manner that the owners of the farm own. It was a large gorgeous building that had been kept in the family for a very long time. After that we departed from our guests to see the port of Rostock and then back to the hotel for dinner. And we finally got to have a beer with our host, Ralf!

It was a great day to be able to take things at a little slower pace while seeing some very interesting history in Germany. Tomorrow we head to a Thanksgiving festival before hopping another train to Munster. Until we blog again!

Nick