Stralsund Querkanal

Description

NV Cruising Guide

Navigation

The approach is possible by day and night via the well buoyed and lighted Strelasund fairway. The Ziegelgraben bridge, located in the south of the seaport, is open at fixed times. North and south of the Ziegelgraben bridge there are 5 dolphins each as waiting berths. For the pleasure boats coming from the north, the passage between the middle and east pier from buoy 54 with 180° is recommended.

Opening hours Bascule bridge Ziegelgraben:

daily. 05:20 - 08:20 - 12:20 - 15:20 - 17:20 - 21:30, until the release signal minimum distance 100m to the bridge keep

Stralsund Traffic VHF channel 67 - Stralsund Port: VHF channel 11 and +49 (0)3831/299662 or 0179/9808631

Berths

There are also some berths in the Querkanal/Traditionshafen behind the bascule bridge. Guest berths can be occupied at the ballast box, the merchant quay and the stone fish bridge within the limits of free capacity.

The following opening hours for the Querkanalbrücke and the Langenbrücke apply as required.

Surroundings

The supply possibilities in the city area itself are good. The moorings in the Citymarina offer good sanitary facilities in the harbor house and at pier No. 8. The old Hanseatic city has a great many sights to offer, including the German Oceanographic Museum, the Ozeaneum and the House of the Maritime Company. 

NV Land Guide

Today's cityscape is still dominated by the Gothic monumental buildings visible from afar from the water. The city has more than 40 cultural-historical monuments, including cathedrals and monastery churches.

Shortly after the fall of the Wall, Stralsund was found to have excellently maintained medieval architecture on the one hand and neglected old building fabric on the other. Today, the city has its architectural treasures of past centuries in the best possible way: Here rises an attractively renovated gabled house there the exemplary renewed facade of an old warehouse. Since 2002, Stralsund's historic old town has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List together with Wismar.

The city's important role in its heyday, when it belonged to the Wendish area of the Hanseatic League, can already be seen from the fact that it was the site of negotiations between the Hanseatic League and Denmark during the "Peace of Stralsund" in 1370. And the importance of its preserved old town parts can be appreciated especially after a historical excursion to the cultural-historical museum. Therefore, we recommend the museum visit as a starter, the city tour as a main course and the visit to selected sights as a dessert.

So first to the starter at the corner of Mönch-Straße/ Katharinenberg, where you learn that Prince Jaromar II of Rügen had his fingers in the pie when the place was founded. He donated a plot of land to Dominican monks on what is now the western edge of Stralsund's old town and paid for the construction of what was initially a modest monastery complex, which grew in size as the power and wealth of the Black Monks increased. In contrast, the Franciscans who later settled on the outskirts of the city were called the "Grey Monks". While the "Blacks" from St. Catherine's Monastery had a strong influence on science and politics, the "Grays" from St. John's Monastery took a closer look at the Bible's word of charity. They devoted themselves above all to the care of the poor and the sick. In 1234, Prince Witzlaw I issued the oldest document in the town today: The town charter. After Stralsund joined the Hanseatic League (1293), whose fleet had raided Stralsund 50 years earlier, the church had to take a back seat in favor of the merchant class. Nevertheless, there was something like an alliance of convenience between the two. However, the Reformation put a stop to the monks in 1525, the Catholics fled and the monasteries became the property of the city. Shortly thereafter, the city council allowed the Birgitine nuns to occupy St. Catherine's Convent. In 1560, the three parishes of St. Nicholas, St. Jacobi and St. Mary became schools and orphanages.

In 1628, imperial troops under Albrecht von Wallenstein laid siege to the city. Fearing a victory by Wallenstein, Mayor Lambert Steinwich concluded an alliance treaty with the Swedes. The Swedish king Gustav Adolf II came, saw, conquered and was celebrated. But soon the people of Stralsund were to feel the transformation of their liberators into exploiters. Before that, the decline of the Hanseatic League had already extraordinarily weakened Stralsund's economic position. The hinterland awarded to the Swedes in the Peace of Westphalia was too small to provide any economic impetus. Stralsund's star sank in the 18th century. Swedish rule lasted until the beginning of 1800. Napoleon's troops marched into Stralsund in 1807. For a short time Major Ferdinand von Schill was able to liberate the city, but he fell when Napoleon's troops approached again and defeated his army of freedom fighters. In the place where the bullet struck him down in Ferry Street, there is today a stone slab with his name. In the museum his death mask is kept and in Sarnow Street he stands cast in bronze with drawn saber.

After his death, the major became one of the most popular men of the German struggle for freedom, because he not only proclaimed military victory over the French, but also demanded liberation from feudal conditions. This linked him to Ernst Moritz Arndt, the spokesman for German unity who was born in Groß Schoritz on the island of Rügen, and whose writings and books are on display in the Stralsund Museum.

While Stralsund was already a powerful maritime trading city in Hanseatic times, it is documented in the museum that the fleet of Stralsund ships reached its highest number in 1878 with 219 seagoing vessels. Visitors can learn even more about the great age of sailing in the House of the Shipping Company. The building at Frankestraße 9 with its classicist gable houses numerous ship models. In the meeting room once the captains of the galleasses, barques and full ships sat and decorated (after often years of sea voyage) their stories of the great voyage with actual and invented adventures.

In the magnificent living rooms, the flagships of a new lifestyle, hung the captains' pictures. Mostly they were painted by seamen, who attached importance to a faithful reproduction of the ships. The captain paintings in the museum bear witness to this pronounced attention to detail. There are also paintings by Caspar David Friedrich, Friedrich Preller, Elisabeth Büchsel and many other well-known artists. Traditional costumes, furniture and dollhouses are just some of the other exhibits.

Who knows exactly what a faceted axe, a pile-dwelling urn or a suspended basin with a swirling ornament is. At any rate, we won't tell, and refer you to the museum's prehistoric and early historic exhibit, which features a range of fascinating pieces, from pre-Christian stone tools to Bronze and Iron Age finds. For historians, the area surrounding Stralsund is a veritable treasure trove. For example, the museum holds the unimaginable number of 50,000 finds. Many other sites are known but have not yet been examined in detail.

Time is turned back in the museum by many thousands of years. All those are considered, which made still before the calculation of time or in the first millennium thereafter between cape Arkona, Wismar and Stettin of itself talk - the Teutons, the Slavs, the Wikinger. To stay with the mentioned ones: Large parts of the Germanic population left this coastal area in the 4th century. The Slavs did not go to war with the invading Slavs, and in a peaceful process they absorbed the remaining Germans into their ranks. With the frequent warlike confrontations this is a process worth mentioning, particularly since the Danes and later the German and Polish princes gave the Slavs a hard time in numerous battles.

It is particularly the Slavic tribe of the Ranen, which builds up a sea trade center on Rügen, which is hardly inferior to the later Haithabu of the Vikings at the Schlei (see Ralswiek). This is proven by the remains of three large Slavic boats and impressive gold finds. The gold was given to the Slavs in exchange for amber, among other things. The "gold of the sea" was highly prized in Central Europe.

against the clumsy cog, the slender Slavic boats were the purest regatta ships. But the belly of the bulky ships held many times more cargo. According to the presumed motto of the big merchants, that much also brings much, the bulky merchant ship started its triumphal procession. As early as 1276, Stralsund received permission to set up its own stalls at the trading centers in Scania (see also Skanør). Branches in Norway follow. A good 100 years later, the city already counts 20 shipyards where the cogs are built. The "boatmakers" became the uncrowned kings of the city. The town seal of those days, which can be seen in the museum, is emblazoned with the cog. So much for the museum and the history of the city, once located on an island, which became Prussian only in 1815.

We have already met the Katharinenkloster as the seat of the Stralsund museums. Founded in 1251 by the Dominicans, it houses not only the aforementioned cultural-historical museum, but also the maritime museum. It boasts one of the largest European aquariums for tropical fish. Two of the exhibition themes are "The sea as a habitat" and "Fishing".

An outstanding Gothic brick building (first construction phase: 13th century) is the town hall at the market with its impressive display front. It is also considered one of the most beautiful secular buildings of the North German brick Gothic. The Nikolai Church near the town hall, built around 1300, is said to have a similar reputation. With its panel painting and other art treasures, it also has special "inner values", including the astronomical clock from 1394. And even at the town hall, not everything that glitters is just a facade. An impressive passage leads right through the middle of the Gothic building. To the right and left of the passage, a gallery is supported by columns. A few meters away from the town hall passage, the city coat of arms from the Swedish period hangs on the west portal of the town hall.

Tightly, the historic houses at the Old Market press up against the mighty St. Nicholas Church and seem almost as if they had sought shelter from the town planners all these years.  Incidentally, the Nikolai Church has only one spire, despite two towers, because both spires burned down in 1662, but during reconstruction in 1667, the funds were only enough for a new baroque dome.

You don't have to look far for stylistic breaks on the market, which is by no means only due to the SED era. Thus, the style break on the facade of the Wulflamhaus, Alter Markt 5, has already made history. The upper part of the front dates from the 15th century, the substructure visibly from the year 1928.

The 1945 by bombs hit Johanniskloster north of the Old Market on Schillstraße should remind as a ruin memorial to the senselessness of the war. On certain days, the complex, which also serves as a setting for concerts, is open to visitors. Also worth seeing are the forecourts of the monastery of St. Johannis.

Only a few of the corridors like those found in Lübeck are still to be found in Stralsund. The Wichmannsgang is one of them. It leads to the Wiekhaus on Frankenwall, built around 1300 as a shell tower (defensive structure open to the city side) and later converted into a tower. Around the tower were the poor and "social housing" of the Middle Ages. On the New Market Square near St. Mary's Church, the row of houses on the south side gives an idea of what the buildings here looked like. As an example of the city's warehouses, Böttcherstrasse 23, today a gallery, is worth mentioning. A restored representative of Gothic town houses is the building in the Frankestraße 29.

Exemplary for the once typical oriels (or Utluchten) is the house No. 22. Between New Market and Old Market, the characteristic gable house development is still partly present, especially in the Mönch-, Ossenreyer- and Mühlenstraße. The gabled houses in Fährstraße are also worth seeing. The important scientist Carl Wilhelm Scheele, the discoverer of oxygen and nitrogen, was born here in house number 13. The reconstructed hallway of the house in Fährstraße 24 shows how it once lived in the gabled houses.

On the way through Mönchstraße, a detour into Heiliggeiststraße to the Kütertor, built in 1446, is recommended. In the one-story half-timbered house next to the western city gate once sat the gate scribe, who in the Middle Ages observed the movement of goods and people.

The most important building in the Mühlenstraße is the Kampinsche Hof, built in 1257, city domicile of the Neuenkamp monastery, today called Franzburg. The house with its notable portals was later Swedish military magazine and salt storage. Even today it is therefore also called "Solthoff ".

A part of the city wall was rebuilt at the Knieper Wall and thus gives an idea of what effort was made in the 13th and 14th centuries to arm against attacks. City gates like the Knieper Gate were the only loopholes. Stralsund was already difficult to capture because of its island location. The surrounding water areas - the Frankenteich, the Knieperteich, the Moor Pond and the Binnenwasser - offered protection from enemies. Today, the Knieperteich with its water fountain is a recreational area of the people of Stralsund, not forgetting the "white bridges".

At the seaport, the red building of the harbor office is worth seeing, a well-preserved, tower-like brick building erected in 1910 as a royal pilot watch. The substructure was built as early as 1840 as part of a weir.

In 2008, the Ozeaneum was founded at Hansakai, a marine museum with numerous special exhibitions, which is really worth seeing and has also already been awarded the title of European Museum of the Year 2010.

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