SUMMARY A weird day. We grab breakfast in Berlin then drive to Penzlin and our next lodging. We’re starving and see a restaurant just outside the gate to our hotel’s grounds so we go in. We’ve discovered that outside the big cities very few people speak English and while I remember a lot of German words, my ability to form a complete sentence is lacking! This is the case here and resulted in a comedic meal with lots of misunderstandings. (I ended up ordering chunks of ham in gelatin.) At check-in we’re told that the hotel is now a vegan/Ayurvedic property. Okaaaaaaay. The location is beautiful with lots of flowers and red brick, cross-timber, thatch roofed buildings scattered over lots of acreage. We hike in the rain through the woods to the lake and private beach which, of course, we can’t use because it’s raining. For dinner we head into town but strike out on restaurants. We end up with some stuff from the grocery store in our room. - Karen
DETAIL We walk to breakfast. Partly for the breakfast, partly for the walk. We don’t know where we’re going but surely we’ll find something, and we do. We walk back home and see interesting buildings and businesses.
We check out and pile ourselves and our stuff back into the car. The GPS is guiding us. Berlin goes on a long way but eventually the buildings and tram rails peter away and we’re in the countryside. Berlin is surrounded by lakes (“sees”) we’re told, and we see quite a few. Beautiful country, though no mountains here.
We drive to Penzlin, where we’re staying. We had planned to first drive to Neubrandenburg, a bigger much more interesting city, but apparently I typed our hotel address into the GPS.
Since we’re at the hotel we can eat, check-in. There’s a restaurant just before the entrance to our hotel property, so let’s just eat here. We go in and ask if we can have lunch. Ja!
Lunch? Sure. Do you speak English? Nein! We sit and order beer and water. It arrives and we sit. Karen eventually goes to ask about lunch. Oh! We have to come out to the entrance hallway to tell you what we want. Got it. Karen points at something in a long shallow pan and asks , in German, what it is. Kuchen (cake) he says and cuts her a taste.
Our host/waiter/chef/bus boy/owner points at a glass shelved display case beside us, to many slate trays each with two types of artfully arranged smoked fish pieces.
A group of four come in, chattering away. Karen asks if they speak English. Ein bischen(a little). Thanks, never mind. Google translate is a bit more helpful with the three items listed on the chalkboard. Deep fried pig’s knuckle. Nein Danke. “Something something roast schweinflesh” sounds like roast pork.
Karen goes for that and for me? the smoked fish. He brings out one of the slate trays and sets it on the low counter before me. I start to carry it to our table, and my waiting beer. Nein! he says, pointing to the heat lamps they’re under, pressing a finger gently on one of the fish pieces to judge the temperature.
Back at our table we sit, enjoy our respective beverages. We nod and smile to the family of four bicyclists who come in. Eventually our dishes are carried in and set down with a flourish. A small glass of medium horseradish sauce is now also on the slate. And there’s bread and cherry tomatoe salad, undoubtedly fresh. Karen’s turns out to be slices of a loaf of aspic with big chunks of roast pork.
We do ourselves proud in eating almost all of both. I think my smoked fish is very tasty. I do encounter a few bones but manage to return them to the plate before they can lodge in my throat. I wonder to myself if “Heimlich Manoeuver” translates easily into German.
We cap off our lunch with some of the apfel (apple) kuchen (cake). Karen orders it “mit schlag” (with whipped cream) as we learned from Ed Kelley, Karen’s dad, who served in the US military in Germany. The chef corrects our term for ‘whipped cream’ and now know we’ve been asking for stuff “with whipped” all these years.
Driving on about 20 meters beyond where we had lunch, the gate is now open. There’s a lady just coming out of the reception office who greets us in our car. We explain that we have a reservation for a room for the night. She seems a bit surprised but points out where we should park and we meet her back in her office. Walking in it looks like Karen will be swallowed up by the zillions of cream colored hydrangea blooms showing off in the bright sun.
The grounds are amazingly big and it’s a goodly drive to our building. We’re permitted to drive there to drop our bags but then must drive back to the parking lot to leave the car. It’s a hassle but it makes the grounds, with the immense buildings, scattered across the green treed grounds, that much prettier. Signing in we are reminded? informed? that all meals here are Ayurvedic, like I have any idea what that means. It sounds bad and I hope the meals feel better soon. Breakfast is included with our room, so I guess we’ll be eating Ayurvedic in the morning!
Our room is roomy. Given the blocky layout of this building and all buildings we guess all rooms are identical. No A/C. It’s sprinkling outside, so opening the windows only increases the humidity. The room has little packets of instant coffee, yay. Sadly there’s no kettle to heat water to make coffee. :-/
We do the 20 minute walk down to the saunas and the lake. We’re still on the property which gives one an idea of the size of the total acreage. On the walk back we take a detour and see one of the two 500 year old oaks. We also see what looks like two bunkers. For most of the walk it’s really raining. Thankfully we borrowed hotel umbrellas. The snails, slugs, and frogs are loving this.
At dinner time we drive to Penzlin but can’t find an open/in business restaurant. We give up and go to the small grocery, which closes in 50 minutes. Not much looks appetizing. We get cheese cubes, crackers and a 1.30€ small tub of faux pâté. To drink we get the only refrigerated, grape-based alcohol drink. It’s “must” which seems appropriate. We later were thinking that without refrigeration it would maybe keep fermenting and the % of alcohol would go up. Checking out we got yelled at in German. What? What? Karen had laid the bottle down. We’re supposed to leave it standing. Alert the media!
Dinner was OK. Maybe tomorrow won’t be raining. We move on to the city of Schwerin for two nights.
Photos
Walking to breakfast I'm reminded that I'll be sharing the road with a lot of trams on tracks. Hm.
Mmmm. Breakfast.
Now at our destination... parked next to a restaurant for lunch. A little ways ahead of us: the gates to our lodging for the night.
Lunch. It was good.
The registration office, and the hydrangias just going bonkers.
The apple, pear, and plum trees, too, were just laden with lots of fruit.
A thatched roof residence (not ours). So big and impressive.
Three saunas. Locked and cold. In this weather they probably would have felt great.
Birds of different types hunkering down at the end of the dock, like us, waiting for the storm to blow over.
A good walk, lots of green, but we had to be careful not to step on a slug or snail. Ready to get these wet shoes off.
Military bunker. Never did learn the story of this one and one other nearby.
500 year old oak. One of two.
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