Wednesday October 5, Schwerin

Evening light on the Schloss..shame about the scaffolding.

Really enjoyed out two days in Wisner, a great little town right beside the harbour and a perfect place for us to stay. This morning it was time to move on and the weather had turned cooler with quite a strong wind. Emptied and filled up at the Stellplatz facilities then set Jilly to find what I thought was a decent size supermarket in town as we needed to replenish our supplies….we had only bought the bare essentials in Scandinavia as so much more expensive. Anyway, we ended up in a dead end road with Ian having to turn Ruakiwi around…and muttering under his breath about the navigator!!! So thought we would continue on to Schwerin where I had the co-ordinates of a place to overnight and would find a supermarket there.
So we drove on with Jilly’s route, and I soon realised that she was taking us on a roundabout route, on the motorways, instead of down the scenic highway directly to town. Ooops, set to and got her to recalculate and soon we were off the motorway and doing a bit of a back track. But it was all good as we stopped at a petrol station to top up and spotted a car wash with a large bay suitable for us. Ruakiwi has looked pretty grubby for a while so for 8 Euro’s she is looking so much better. And spotted what appeared to be a supermarket nearby called REAL. And what a good find, it turned out to be like Walmart but much better quality and with a huge selection of groceries. The cost of wine in Germany could very easily turn you into an alcoholic with really good wine at less than NZ$5 a bottle and little bottles of good bubbles for about NZ$1.50.  After packing the supplies into Ruakiwi we headed off to Schwerin and Jilly had us at the parking area in the grounds of the castle without any problems. This parking area is 8 Euro for 24 hours and allows Motorhomes. No facilities but such a great central location.
Had our lunch then put our walking boots on and set off through the gardens towards the Schloss (castle). Such a shame that there is major work being done on the exterior with large section scaffolded and covered. This is a fairy tale castle with lots of turrets, domes and topped with a gilded turret like a crown. There has been a small castle here on the island from 1200 but it has undergone many changes but in 1837 Paul Frederich Franz II’s treated himself to this over the top remodelling.  Today half the castle is used by the local state parliament and as we walked around we could see all the very stately black limousines parked outside.
The gardens surrounding the castle are a great piece of landscape gardening from the 19th century. There are huge areas of trees planted in absolute symmetrical lines, perfect 5 metre spacing in all directions. Had fun with my camera trying to make photos of them!
We continued into the town centre and thoroughly enjoyed wandering the streets with its great architecture and a sense of prosperity. The town square had a large number of market stalls selling everything from fish, meat, cheeses to fruit and vegetables and flowers. It was late in the afternoon when we got back to the van, very pleased to take our boots off! After a cuppa I wandered off around the park like grounds with my camera, it was windy and cold but I thoroughly enjoyed myself.


A shame part of the Schloss was covered over.

The market place had everything you might want.


Got chatting to Nicole and Boy in the market square.



Enjoyed walking the streets of Schwerin



Loved the gardens

Noticed these two with their balloons, they told me it was for the little one's first birthday.

....and later I noticed them hanging on a bridge!

The symmetry of the trees was impressive.



Just like soldiers in a row

Lined up in the parking area.

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