One of the best places near Rostock to enjoy nature

The stressed, the busy, the overtaxed – all need some time for themselves to relax, just like me. Recent weeks overwhelmed me with all the university work in front of my laptop and the recovered freedom to meet people and do nearly everything. That’s why I needed a bit relaxation in nature. That is why I want to tell you about my last weekend trip that felt like pure relaxation in an absolute beautiful environment. A friend and I looked for something we could do to escape the load of the last weeks, and we decided to do a tour with a pedal boat in Markgrafenheide.

So, we went to the boat rental shop in Markgrafenheide in Warnemünder Straße 6b. It can be reached  by bus from Warnemünde via ferry and from Rostock or by bike including an amazing biking tour through the Rostocker Heide or, the simplest way, by car. By the way, there is a parking spot next to the boat rental shop. The boat rental shop has about six pedal boats in the form of yellow cars, blue dolphins and normal ones. Beside this, they have several canoes and kayaks. Up to four adult persons can use the pedal boats and two or three persons the canoes. For our trip, we chose a blue dolphin and rented it for two hours for €16. For €10 you can rent one boat for one hour, for €20 you can have it for three hours.
At the boat rental, the employee made us feel very welcome with his relaxed nature and we started our tour immediately.
We started our boat tour at the same place the paddle wheeler Schnatermann always starts its tour to the little harbour with the same name around 4 kilometres away. In our case, we started two minutes after the boat and could follow it for the first 400 metres on a small inlet, called “Moorgraben” that led us to the “Radelsee”. In the first instance we felt really powerful and started to pedal as fast as the boat, but suddenly there was no power anymore and we stopped pedalling and started to recharge. This reminded me of my everyday life in general: quickstarting the day, checking the to-do´s and finally running through the task as fast as possible until they are almost done. But lately, I realized that every new task costs more: motivation, power, time. That happens when I need some time to recharge. Soon after I realized those parallels, we pedalled in a slower beat and started to come down and enjoy the environment.

The “Radelsee” was always a little mystery for me: one can barely see it from the bank with its green glowing reeds and the marshy ground lining it. After the initial meters, I dipped into a natural wonderland where I only heard chirping birds and the silent monotonous banging of the pedal boat. The more we pedalled in our own speed, the more we dipped into enchanting nature started to relax and feel kind of “home”.  On the “Radelsee” it was a bit windy because it is an open area, but in the midday heat, the fresh wind was very welcome.

We drifted a bit on the “Radelsee” and continued our tour after some minutes along “Moorgaben”. There was more terrific scenery awaiting us because “Moorgraben” lies next to the “Rostocker Heide forest” and the bank was lined not only with reeds, but with low hanging trees. This reminded me a bit of the “Bayou” swampland in Louisiana, but of course it had its own feeling: you should definitely experience it for yourself. We took some time to enjoy our break from everyday life on the pedal boat and relaxed in the sun with closed eyes, ate a small lunch, and watched colourful dragonflies and birds which lived in the same, but a different world. Then we continued our tour to the little “Schnatermann” harbour, where the mouth of “Moorgraben” ends in the “Breitling”, a lake-like expansion of the Warnow, where small boats shouldn´t be. Even it was interesting to see it the big boats on the “Breitling”, it remembered me of the daily stress again. That is one of the reasons why we turned over and pedalled the same way back to continue feeling relieved. The tour was easily manageable: not exhausting but relaxing. But you should definitely try it out and see it by yourself.

Back at the boat rental shop we decided to drink a “Radler” at the Heidegasthof , where you can sit next to “Moorgraben” on the landing stage. There we continued to enjoy the peaceful idyll, because we didn´t feel ready to go back into the city where new tasks were waiting. But after one more hour there, we dared to go home and kept our tour as power reserves  in our mind.