Visiting Rügen Island, Germany

With one full day to explore Ruegen Island, the largest in all of Germany, we had an itinerary full of activities. One of the highlights included renting an e-trabi (tranbant) car of the former GDR (East Germany) era taking it for a spin. The typical engine had been replaced by an electric motor making it a more environmentally friendly ride.
We then visited Göhren where we sampled freshly made German bread with generous amounts of butter and herbs before checking out a couple of local museums featuring traditional farming equipment, horse drawn carriage equipment and kitchenware. Nearby we cooled off at North Beach where hundreds flock to tan and swim.
To visit more of Rügen we traded in our car for train ticket passes. Boarding the Roland Racer, a former steam engine commuter train, we passed scenic towns, forests and farmland.
Hearing about the famed chalky cliffs we headed over to Jasmund National Park to marvel at them in person.
Although we packed a lot into one day of travel we left feeling we barely covered the island. Hopefully we'll have a chance to return again soon to visit more areas.
Visiting Rügen Island, Germany Travel Video Transcript:
So good morning from Germany. It is day four of our big road trip around the country and today we are exploring around Rügen Island.
So we have a very busy itinerary today. We are planning to visit the white chalky cliffs of Jasmund National Park. We're also going to be riding around in an e-Trabi and we're going to be traveling by steam engine train.
So that should be a real adventure and I think we're also going to finish things off with a few visits to museums.
So a fun day ahead. Let's go start exploring.
So we're about to ride on the Roland Racer which is an old fashioned steam engine train.
Though the train was once used as a commuter train for locals these days you're more likely to find visitors enjoying the scenic route.
The tracks run past farms, villages and stretches of forest. It is an absolutely spectacular ride.
So we have now arrived at a place called Königsstuhl at Jasmund National Park. And this is a world heritage UNESCO site and it is really well known for its white chalky cliffs. I'm sure most of you have seen the white cliffs of Dover. Well, Germany has something just like it.
So this is our sweet ride for the day. We're going to be driving an e Trabi around the island. So this is an old fashioned trabant. It would have been the car that they drove in East Germany the former GDR. And they've put in an electric motor in it so now it is good for the environment and we're going to be cruising. It is nice and colorful so I think we're going to make quite the impression on the roads.
So we are still visiting the town of Göhren but right now we are down at the beach here at the promenade. So this area is called North Beach and it is beautiful for strolling, maybe doing a bit of sunbathing and we have some great weather today so a lot of people are out just enjoying the sun.
We've got a slice of the local bread here. It has just been freshly made and if you look down you can see that it has got a generous portion of butter and also herbs. So let's try this out. It is amazing. So fresh. Such a generous amount of butter. That's probably about three times as much butter as I would normally put on my bread but it tastes really good.
We then visited a few local museums in Göhren which showcased life as it was a few centuries back. Their collection included a mixture of farming equipment, horse drawn carriages and furniture that would have found in local households.
That was a really busy day. We've just arrived back home. We're going to rest up because tomorrow we're off to a new destination.
This is part of our Travel in Germany series. We're making a series of videos showcasing German culture, German arts, German foods, German religion, German cuisine and German people.
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All photos and video taken by Samuel Jeffery (Nomadic Samuel) and Audrey Bergner (That Backpacker).
Music in this video courtesy of Audio Network