The Kaiser's watering hole

Baltic island of Usedom: The old Kaiser resorts and the untouched natural paradise are only a 21/2 hours' flight away.

As soon as Gunnar Fiedler leaves inhabited areas in the Landrover, he stops and invites two passengers to climb up. The passengers lie on thir stomachs on the roof of the Landrover and hook their feet through the cross bars. Hardly anyone leaves this wonderful vantage point voluntarily as there is a lot to see on the safari across the island of Usedom in the North-East of Germany.

Although Fiedler does not stalk any rhinos or giraffes in the off-roader, his guests view any number of sea eagles through their camera rangefinders and binoculars. The raptors with their 2.8 metre wing span hunt everything that moves on land and water. Gunnar says that he has even seen a sea eagle tackling a fox.

Usedom is about 4 hours' train journey from Berlin. The trip from Switzerland to Usedom, including the flight to Berlin, takes a day. However soon the journey will be reduced to 2.5 hours. From 30 May, OLT is flying every Saturday non-stop from Zurich to Usedom.

In the hinterland: lakes, thick reed beds, open woods

Gunnar Fiedler shows the hinterland with enthusiasm, the natural paradise away from the built-up coastal strip. In the hinterland, the water of the lakes glitters in the sun. The wind whispers through impenetrable reed beds and open woods and shakes the sails of disused windmills. On the journey through the southern part of the island we meet a handful of excursionists. But lots of cows, sheep and pigs that inhabit the huge fields. And a farmer, who is following by a flock of seagulls while he ploughs the field. Water is never far away on Usedom. The 3 Kaiser resorts lie directly on the Baltic, the three resorts Bansin, Heringsdorf and Ahlbeck. The beach has a Caribbean quality, the sand is so fine, clean and bright. The brochures proudly announce: nowhere else in Germany does the sun shine longer. A mild climate in guaranteed well into October.

On the promenade: the villas have been wonderfully restored

Word of these advantages got around in the mid-19th century among Berlin's upper middle classes, who made Heringsdorf into a favourite holiday resort. Rich Berliners, including many Jewish bankers such as Oppenheim or Bleichröder, built wonderful villas on the Heringsdorf promenade in the resort architecture style. This style is not a separate genre but a mixture of pieces from various epochs. The stately villas surrounded by wonderful parks are adorned with classic columns, Palladian outside stairways, Scandinavian wooden facades, English country house roofs or romantic towers. The houses on Heringsdorf's promenade have had a a varied history: requisitioned by the  Nazis and the Soviets,  use as holiday homes for the workers of the former East Germany, return to former owners or sale to investors . Today all the villas on the seafront have been wonderfully restored and accommodate exclusive holiday apartments or hotels . Werner Molik came to Usedom from the Rhineland when the communist system collapsed, acquired one of these historical buildings and converted it to create the Strandhotel Heringsdorf. Molik would like to create more apartments. But the economic crises could also affect Usedom, perhaps Molik will postpone the expansion by a year. Then the hunter will have enough time to invest in his own hunting area. Last year it delivered 180 kilos of meat from red deer, fallow deer and wild boar for the kitchens of the  Strandhotel.

Petra Bensemann is a colleague of Molik. She directs the Hotel Das Ahlbeck opened in 2006 not far from the romantic Ahlbeck pier. Formerly the resort attracted a less glamourous public than  Heringsdorf. The gardens and houses were more modest. Times change, Das Ahlbeck is one of the best hotels on the island, its stylish wellness zone satisfies the most demanding requirements. Petra Bensemann, who in DDR-times was a teacher, believes that visitors to Usedom are not only looking for beach and nature but also like to be taken care of . You can put this to the test on the hotel's terrace – by cuddling up in a Strandkorb, ordering a pot of coffee and home-baked cake, blink in the strong sunlight and observe from a safe distance the crowds strolling on the promenade . The promenade is 8.5 km long and stretches from Bansin to Ahlbeck. If the Poles get their act together and extend their promenade from Swinoujscie to the border, it would be 15 km long  – a European record.

To the Polish border: 4 km to another world
Recently all the borders checks on the binational island were abolished. A path leads directly behind the beach through the former no-man's land, posts remind one of the former border fence. The forest path leads onto Ul. Stefana Zeromskaya: welcome to Poland. Cracks in the road, trees in the middle of the footpath force pedestrians to perform a slalom. The Eastern Block feel is lost however on the Swinoujscie promenade, where the mood is lifted by fountains and dozens of benches invite one to take a rest. The 4 km long passage over the border has brought us to a completely different world. While other there in Germany people rush over the promenade in wind jackets and pullovers, the Poles enjoy the sun while chatting, with naked upper bodies. Young girls teeter on high heels through the pedestrian zone. The waiter in the open air café speaks German reluctantly and there is a strong  smell of garlic from the fast food stands. Since the border has opened, trains and buses drive again to Swinoujscie but Germans and Poles ignore the united Europe and don't have much to say to each other.

Usedom has lots of other curiosities to offer; in Trassenheide visitors are welcome to an "upside-down" house. They walk over the ceiling and admire toilets, tables and chairs that hang upside down from the "floor". In the quiet town of Usedom, a spinner has set up a spinning wheel on the sidewalk and works sheep's wool and in the restaurant at Heringsdorf train station, beer and mineral water are served to guests by a model railway.

The situation of Usedom's fishermen is also strange. They don't have any problems selling their catch from the cutters, but only a fraction of the catch from the old days is to be gleaned now from the nets Klaus Schulz from Usedom town shows a rare specimen catch of a 8 kg zander that he caught early today. But as Eddy Stoll,  his colleague from Bansin, Schulz struggles fruitlessly against the enemy of all fishermen. Cormorants eat all the fish, and their number are exploding. «When a flock takes off," says Stoll the local accent, «the sky is blackened.» As soon as hunters go about culling the birds, they have to deal with TV crews and protesting environmentalists.

Safari guide Gunnar shows us a huge stone near Pudagla, in the Achterwasser, the body of water separating the island from the mainland. The "Teufelsstein", which is covered by a thick layer of guano, is so called because it was reputedly hurled by the Devil into the water. Now it serves the cormorants as a vantage point, there of them have just landed on it. Gunnar unpacks the picnic on the empty beach, cuts fresh bread and bio ham, opens a pack of butter and some home-made jam. The island tour is hung work. Even the roof-top passengers now climb down from voluntarily from the top of the Landrover.

CHRISTOPH AMMANN

Sunday, 24 Mav 2009