Even though I don't know any of the trip organisers personally, I take the liberty to mention their names here and thank them from the bottom of my heart for organising such a exciting tour.
Magdeburg - Ludwigslust - Mirow - Ravensbrück - Magdeburg
Magdeburg - Ludwigslust - Mirow - Ravensbrück - Magdeburg
We started at 8am on the bright and cool day with beautiful weather...with so many happy and cheerful faces. As the journey started our bus went through the country side of Germany with beautiful fields stretched widely on the either side of the roads and the randomly placed wind mills helped only to enhance the beauty of the view. The houses in these places need to have special mentions because of their pretty cute colorful looks with little backyard for every house.
After a short break at a petrol station on the way, our journey towards Ludwigslust castle continued. At around 11.30am we reached the town of Ludwigslust. The small German town is serene with relaxing ambience and lot of greenery. Interesting part of the city is that there is no much difference between the regular houses and the Kleingartenlage. A small walk through into the Ludwigslust castle gave a glimpse on the European society in the medieval period. The exhibits like chandeliers and the vintage furniture looked so exotic and extravagant.
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Ludwiglust palace |
Overall the castle is good with well maintained surroundings. After spending a little time in the castle we visited a church. Later journey to Mirow continued. At around 5.30 we reached the hostel. Inspite of rain washing out our campfire...the evening turned playful with volleyball, table tennis and Frisbee.
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Our Stay |
On the second day after breakfast we headed for the real exciting part of the trip.. Canoeing. After collecting the canoeing gear along with necessary instructions from our guide we went into the waters of Mirow Lake. The lake was big enough covering an area of at least 1-2 sqkm. Initially there was a trial run just to get in touch with canoeing. After a while all our boats assembled at the center of lake. From there we are supposed to reach a place called "island of sea roses". Immediately after the heads up for the destination, happened the most fun and exciting part. Our boat with 3 people in it lost the balance and flipped completely. All of us drowned into the water. There was panic for a moment because of the unexpected incident. As I don't know how to swim it took a while for me to get my breath back. Then 2 of us tried to flip the boat back to position but it didn't work and only made things worse by hurting my friend's arm. Soon the situation came into control and our guide flipped the boat back into the position. We also managed to get into our boats. In this hustle, our box containing our mobiles, camera, wallet and id's also drowned along with us during the flip. The stuff is nearly 1.3 lakh rupees(1800 euros) worth. Thankfully my friends from other boat caught hold of it. Now our rowing towards our destination resumed. After 1hr we reached the place. It is typical to the region with beautiful white flowers floating across the water. And from there we went on to a beach nearby. We had our lunch and started rowing again to a some other lake. This time we had to pass through the forest. The strip of the water stream through the forest is only 6 ft wide and we had to pass this with our 3ft wide boats. The surroundings are very dense with swamp lands. It was not so easy to maintain the direction of boat as the path was zigzag. But the experience was crazy. Finally we rowed all the way back and returned to the starting point in the evening at 5PM. Later we had barbeque and campfire. Finally this day happened to be memorable for all of us. It was adventurous too...but only for our 3 of us who drowned. :P
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Barbeque PC: Dinesh Reddy |
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PC: Dinesh Reddy |
On the third and final day, we left our camp site after the breakfast at around 10am in the morning. Now we were headed towards Ravensbrück memorial. It was one of the concentration camps for women during world war 2 started in 1939 and liberated in 1945. In contrast to the exhibits in Ludwigslust this place is filled completely with heart touching stories and the dark mood still reverberating in the entire place. With our guide leading us into the camp we heard so many sad stories and came to know how miserable were the lives of camp workers and the prisoners. Then we moved into the museum of the memorial. We had a look at the historical artifacts that were used in the camp and the listened to some recorded interviews of the camp survivors.
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Assembly area for prisoners |
Overall the place is reckoned to be with historical and emotional importance. We left the memorial at around 2.45PM and headed to Magdeburg.
Finally this tour is truly remarkable and I once again thank the ikus team members Angela, Prafull, Osama, Fine and Anke for well organised affordable and wonderful trip.