For today’s post, I propose to go to the north east of Germany, in Mecklenburg Vorpommern. Germany has access to two seas: the North Sea, in the north west, and the Baltic Sea, in the north east.

On the Baltic side, with the exception of a part of the island of Rügen which I will not cover here, the large sandy beaches dominate and that is where I propose to take you.

To reach the sandy beaches, you usually have to pass through a system of coastal dunes, access to which is restricted in order to protect them and even regenerate them in many places where human occupation threatens them:

The beaches are then there, the sea bed has a very gentle slope in the Baltic, it remains a shallow sea with a very low tide (a few dozen centimetres).

The human presence is never far away, even out of season, with jetties, dykes, and buildings to monitor swimming:

There are many walkers on these beaches, the seabirds fortunately get along well, maybe not all of them, but at least the seagulls and gulls that are there in numbers…

As well as stranded jellyfish waiting for the next tide to set sail again:

A small anecdote to finish, during the separation of the two Germanies, the West went on holiday to the North Sea while the East went to the Baltic. More than thirty years later, these habits persist.