Finding a quiet spot in the city isn’t always as easy as it may sound. Surely, there are some in town that are made for a nice afternoon stroll: Rostock’s very own port where all kinds of ships and boats float peacefully on the river Warnow. That lovely green park right behind the Kunsthalle which looks like a cut-out Monet painting of wide fields and dreamy ponds. Or how about Rostock at night? It’s as quiet as a churchyard and if you’re lucky you might even see the night’s watch walking around town with their long robes and scythes and candle-lit lanterns (they’re tourist guides, don’t worry). There’s one place though that’s even more silent than these I just mentioned. Deadly silent, one might also say.
If you’re looking for something more akin to a forest you might want to pay a visit to the “Lindenpark” (“Limetree Park”) which is located right in the heart of the city. Doesn’t sound that special given that’s it’s basically a park with straight arrangements of lime trees and some wild growth here and there. There is something uniquely odd about this place, though. Anyone who’s lived in Rostock long enough knows the tube station called “Neuer Friedhof” (“New Cemetery”). Why this is important you may ask? Well, if there is a “new cemetery”, logically, there has to be an old one somewhere. And this is where the “Lindenpark” comes in.
Among the tall, shadowy trees, the wildly growing plants and the narrow paths you’ll find artifacts of a time long past. Here and there you will spot tiny, old gravestones hidden beneath the plants, big monolithic graves intertwined with twigs of blackberry bushes and ancient pillars that tower next to the lime trees. The park itself is bigger than it looks from the outside yet it’s small enough to see the whole of it on one eager walk. The lucky ones among you will go there during the peak of autumn when the park turns into a moving picture of lights and colours and the floor is covered in a blanket of orange and yellow.
Trying to find the place is fairly easy: it’s located opposite of the Saarplatz tube station, right next to the Hundertmännerstraße (Quite literally: “Hundred Men Street”. Let’s hope it has nothing to do with the old cemetery.)[mappress mapid=”224″]
