GER – Wernigerode to Wandlitz

31.05.24 – Day 8 solo trip to Tallinn, Estonia on a BMW R1150 RT

Honestly I am happy that today is the day that I can leave Wernigerode.
Not because of I not like the city, but the hotel is way to big and way to crowded in my opinion.
At least today I could have breakfast almost in quiet peace as I arrived more early than yesterday and the other guests not wake up yet.

So hurry hurry to get the stuff ready to go – at 08.40 am I was on the road.

Weather nice and the rider (me) was fully motivated.
Unfortunately I passed a gas station without filling up fuel. This turned out as a mistake as along the road there were no gas stations! I wonder where the people fill up their vehicles??

For get fuel I needed to change the route and go a short distance highway. Not too bad as well as I could speed up a bit!

You know the photos of rapeseed fields bikers love to take every spring to show the start of the season?
I bring no rapeseed but poppy fields to you. Red instead of yellow. Looking very very good in my opinion.

Due to my detour for getting fuel I arrived at the Elbe river in a small town named Rogätz.
This small ferry across the river is cute isn’t it?

The funny thing is, that very soon I arrived at another ferry in another small village for crossing the Elbe.

If you ever go on a small ferry like this and it’s raining or wet, take care. The steel floor of the ferry is slippery like hell and I almost crashed the motorbike.

The clouds you see on the photos were not fake clouds. Meaning, it started raining but not for long time and not really heavy.

In Jerichow, a small city alongside the road is a more or less famous monastery to visit. I skipped that stop due to nasty drizzle. At least I took a photo of the local windmill.

Some of the roads in country side where like you travel back in time.
Look at the surface of the road.
Oh, and very very straight roads.

Finally, after 340 km I arrived in Wandlitz.
Shortly after World War II, the village was home to an orphanage of children from Berlin. The orphanage, run by nuns, later became a holiday spot for visiting high-ranking Communist party members. The children of the small orphanage were frowned upon as second-class citizens by villagers, and often went hungry.

The name Wandlitz was and is often used as a synonym for the nearby “Waldsiedlung” compound, where the highest East German functionaries lived removed from the general population. But this settlement is a part of the town Bernau.

Waldsiedlung (German for “Forest settlement”)was the secure housing zone for the leaders of the German Democratic Republic in Bernau bei Berlin, Brandenburg from 1960 to 1989. Waldsiedlung housed the most senior party members of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in relative luxury near Wandlitz,30 kilometres north of East Berlin, with surrounding areas off-limits to all ordinary citizens.
Waldsiedlung consisted of 23 detached family houses with 180 m² of land each within the inner ring. The site had a club house with a cinema and a restaurant, a shop where a limited selection of subsidized luxury Western goods could be purchased with East German marks, a market garden, a health clinic, a shooting range, a swimming pool, a sports field, and tennis courts. There were also barracks and social buildings for site employees and guards. During the Honecker-era, cooks at Waldsiedlung were required to produce  gourmet-level meals. In addition to high-quality East German food products, western products such as Beaujolais wines and seltzer water were imported from West Berlin. In 1983, a nuclear bunker with the capacity to accommodate 400 people was completed in Waldsiedlung.
In late 1989, Waldsiedlung’s inhabitants had to leave the settlement in accordance with a resolution adopted by the GDR government under Premier Hans Modrow. After German reunification, Waldsiedlung became home to a rehabilitation clinic and private residences, and was brought under the administration of Bernau bei Berlin on 1 July 2001.

Even that the visit in the Waldsiedlung was interested, in my opinion the history of the GDR was destroyed there. And not only there. For me it seems that the German government tries to delete this part of the German history.

Anyways, I stayed in the Hotel & Restaurant Seeschloss in Lanke. It was ok but a bit overpriced for what you get. In my opinion.

A great day ended with a walk to the nearby lake, some sun in the face and a simple but great “Backfisch” dinner.

Find the details of the trip in the link here.

Stay tuned guy’s and enjoy yourself!!!

#dustysocks