Where the sea has come to rest

We Brits love our islands. Whether Majorca or Corfu, the Isle of Wight or Jamaica, anyone who has grown up on a land surrounded by water automatically feels at home when visiting one on holiday.

There is something satisfying, too, about thoroughly exploring an island over the course of a week.

What appealed to my wife Maria and me was a two-centre break combining the life and culture of a vibrant city with time enjoying peace and nature’s beauty. Hamburg and Rügen fitted the bill perfectly, with a common theme linking them: both focus very much on sustainability.

Rügen is Germany’s biggest island and is well known there as a place people have visited for hundreds of years, but it is relatively unknown in the UK because it has not been easy to get to.

For 40 or so years it was “cut off”, because it was in East Germany under GDR rule.

However, with a lot of cheap flights now to Berlin and Hamburg, each under three hours’ drive away, Rügen is now very accessible.

We hired a car at Hamburg Airport and headed east, the motorways pleasantly less busy than those in England.

The gateway to Rügen is Stralsund, a Hanseatic town rich in history. Like Rügen itself, over the centuries it has found itself owned by the Danes, then by the Swedes — even by the French during Napoleonic times — before becoming part of Prussia.

Across to Rügen from Stralsund there is a stunning 2,800m-long bridge, which was opened in 2007 by Chancellor Angela Merkel.

To get as much as we could from the island we had two bases, at the Badehaus Goor in the south, then at the Aquamaris-Strandresidenz in the north. Goor is on the coast, just two kilometres from Putbus where eccentric Prince Wilhelm Malte I laid out wide areas for aesthetic needs. It was here in 1816 that the first bathing resort was founded on the island, and from then Rügen became the most famous holiday resort in Germany, staying so until the Second World War.

Badehaus Goor 

In his exclusive marina nearby, which includes floating apartments (on stilts), Til Jaich has built his own energy production plant, using solar energy and bio gas from the island to make the whole place self-sustaining.

From the harbour at neighbouring Lauterbach you can take a passenger boat to a nature-protected little island called Vilm.

Vilm is an amazing place. Totally unspoilt, it is part of the biosphere reserve of south-east Rügen, open to visitors only in the form of guided walks. We took one, and as well as learning about its spectacular beech trees, we heard how, under communist rule, it was used as a holiday village by GDR ministers, who enforced a strict security ring around the island and deliberately left it off maps to maintain secrecy. And while no one else in the country could access western television, they installed an antenna specifically to watch foreign TV stations while lounging.

One of the ancient trees on Vilm

The coastline of the main island ranges from expanses of white sand to huge white chalk cliff-faces, while huge boulders — relics of the last ice age — punctuate the landscape.

The chalk cliffs here are the most iconic landscape of Rügen, helped to fame by the illustrious painter Caspar David Friedrich.

Scenic beech forests border the coastline and just a few hundred metres inland, large reed belts and salt meadows can be seen dotted around the inshore waters known as the Bodden.

Rügen’s unique nature has been given special protection. The beautiful beech woods within the Jasmund National Park have been awarded UNESCO World Natural Heritage status, ensuring that natural processes have priority over any human land use, and the biosphere reserve is a representational model region for UNESCO and one of the most important global tools to trial and implement sustainable regional development.

With around 2,100 hours of sunshine per year, the island is one of the sunniest regions in all Germany.

And being quite far north, in the summer months it stays light till 11pm. When we were there, last month, the long evenings, like St Petersburg’s famous “white nights”, gave the place a special atmosphere.

Another remarkable place to visit is the Naturerbezentrum (Natural Inheritance Centre) where you can personally experience the island’s natural environment and landscape. A real magnet for visitors is a 1,250-metre-long barrier-free treetop path with a viewing tower, modelled on an eagle’s eyrie, that stands 82m above sea level.

The little island of Vilm, just south of Rügen

I was ignorant about the Baltic Sea, assuming it to be like our English Channel. However, being largely enclosed, it is more like a lake, with hardly any tide, and with large areas around Rügen being fresh water rather than salt water. So everywhere you look you can see swans swimming in the sea. With very little surface light in remote areas, here is a great place too to see the stars.

Green tourism is growing and partners who come on board have an obligation to keep the island green. One such partner is the Hotel Aquamaris, at Juliusruh, where the staff were incredibly friendly and welcom-ing, and which proved an ideal base to visit Putgarten and Kap Arkona at the northern-most point of the island, and Hiddensee, an island resembling one long spit of land, and on which cars are not allowed.

Hiddensee is best viewed on foot or by bicycle. We hired electric bicycles, which is cheating a bit, I know. I had never been on one before, but at the end of a long day, the option of switching suddenly on a gradient from pedal power to electric power (battery-charged overnight) was quite welcome.

There are several ferries across the Bodden to Hiddensee. From the one we took, you could see how the chain of islands and peninsulas separating the lagoons from the Baltic Sea had created one of the most important areas for the Baltic fish fauna, with the freshwater and marine worlds meeting, flounder living next to zander, herring next to pike. Coldwater lagoons like this are found nowhere else on the planet. It is a place where the sea has come to rest.

In Putgarten, the village itself is in charge of the naturally protected area surrounding it. Ernst Heinemann, its mayor for 22 years, was a driving force in the move towards sustainability and keeping big enterprises away. There are art and craft outlets — one located in a converted lighthouse — and even the train is powered by liquid gas.

Hamburg, which we flew into, and home to 1.8m people, makes a pleasant contrast to the Baltic islands, whether you end your holiday or, as we did, start off there.

Hiring a bicycle is a great way to see this thriving, bustling city. With the Elbe river and the Alster Lake, its boulevards, public buildings and parks, it’s clear why Hamburg is known as one of the most beautiful cities in the heart of Europe. The people treasure its unique waterside location with its massive port — 110km inland from where the Elbe estuary meets the North Sea — close to the city centre.

More information on Hamburg

European Green Capital three years ago, Hamburg has a raft of sustainability projects, and a massive regeneration of HafenCity, part of the port area, is taking place.

Scandic Hotel in Hamburg

Our base, Scandic Hotel, superbly located right in the centre, is very focused on contributing to a sustainable society and has set itself challenging targets on eliminating carbon dioxide emissions and reducing water comnsumption and waste.

Like Rügen itself, which realises how vital it is to get the balance right between letting people enjoy its magnificent landscape and ensuring that the island can cope, there’s a growing movement in Hamburg too, and throughout Germany, to encourage sustainability.

We can learn much from it.

TRAVEL FACTS

Jon travelled with easyJet to Hamburg as a guest of the German National Tourist Office and visited Rügen as a guest of the Rügen Tourist Board and Hamburg as a guest of Hamburg Tourism. EasyJet fly to Hamburg from £22.99 (including taxes).

VISIT:

www.germany.travel

www.hamburg-travel.com

www.ruegen.de

www.hotel-badehaus-goor.de

www.aquamaris.de

www.scandichotels.com