Natureum in Darsser Ort

Boy - we had a lot of fun taking that photo!

Our tour cycle around Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Germany continues. I already described the story how we decided to travel around Szczecin (see: Greifswald post).
This time we chose Stralsund for our destination. However, before we reached Stralsund, we went a bit further west and north - to Darsser Ort (Parow).
I came across that spot when I was checking out places around Stralsund. It's a typical summer resort, with a lot of (what we call) junk-stalls, summer houses etc. - all of that of course deserted in winter. But we didn't seek for hustle and bustle of summer, to the contrary - we went there to breathe in the tranquillity of winter. And undoubtedly - we got it.

It was very cold (around 8 Cels. below zero), so to warm myself up a bit I slid a couple of times on frozen water. It was fun though my boots were not designed for that activity. Ice skates would have been better for that occasion.

In principle, we were looking for Natureum - museum of nature at the Baltic See. There was supposed to be a lighthouse and a building with sea life exhibition. What I didn't discover in advance was that the place was located in Vorpommersche Boddenlandschaft Nationalpark. That meant no car access and a walk of around 12km (both ways) in order to see the lighthouse. But OK - we said "A" - we needed to say "B", so we marched courageously in the cold. Fortunately, the views were worth it.

To reach the lighthouse we needed to turn away a bit from the beach and traverse a field of cane and a forest. The path was very narrow and sometimes we needed to watch our steps in order not to fall down to the bulrush. When we finally reached Natureum we were pretty tired and cold, so we rushed back to our car (which was not that close).