Mecklenburgische Seenplatte (Germany)
Anklam / EDCA → Rechlin / EDAX.
It is time to leave the coastline for good and turn inlands. So we took off from Anklam and travelled south towards Feldberg. The town sits between the Breiter Luzin (lit. “wide Luzin Lake”), Haussee and Schmaler Luzin (lit. “Narrow Luzin Lake”). The latter counts among the first official nature reserves in all of Germany, being a “Naturschutzgebiet” since the 19th century, when the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin ordered its protection.
Further west we came across Waren (Müritz) on Lake Müritz, the largest lake on German territory. This might be the oldest known settlement in Mecklenburg, being described as “Virunium” by Alexandrine cartographer Claudius Ptolemy in 150 AD. Originally settled by the Germanic Warini Tribe, it was later colonized by Slavic and Westphalian settlers, who founded modern-day Waren in 1273.
After crossing the Müritz (lit. “small sea” in Sorbian) we took a picture of it near Gotthun on its southern shore. While the Bodensee is larger than the Müritz, it is also partly on Austrian and Swiss territory, making the Müritz the largest lake completely inside of German territory. After the last ice age the entire Mecklenburgische Seenplatte was a gargantuan lake before the natural drainage reduced it to its current size.
Following the southern shore we reached Rechlin on the Kleine Müritz (lit. Small Müritz), which was once an important aircraft testing range for the Luftwaffe during World War One as well as during the rearmament process of the Wehrmacht in the years before World War Two.
With our arrival in Rechlin we finished our tour of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, enabling us to continue to Brandenburg & Berlin for our next trip!
Map of our Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Tour:
