18/9: Reimershagen - Zwenzow

3525.5km in 211:07 (53*19'00"N, 12*56'34"E)
On the road down to Berlin I crossed the city Waren close to the Müritz sea. I took an ice in this nice city and enjoyed the view on the lake. I was unfortunately unlucky because juste after I have ordered my "Schwarzwälder Ice" came a small but loud street cleaner which cleand up the whole place... and it stopped his work when I paid the bill!

But the nice surprise on my road today was the church of Ankershagen. When you look at it, it looks like a very common church. But when you kook closer, you can read on a small wood tablet that it is one of the oldest stone church in Mecklenburg (dating form 1266). Ok, the stave church in Norway are older, in wood and much more beautiful. But the huge difference is that this church is not turned back in a museum: it's a living place with a lot of ideas. When you enter the front door, you can see the rope on which hangs the bell and a very steep stair leading to the bell tower with a small Inscription: "on your own risk". So it is allowed to climb up... and at each step you hear the wood of the stair cracking under your feet. Will you fall down or will the stair just break? An other big difference with the classic churches: when you reach the top you can only see the bell: it is impossible to have a panoramic view of the city! On the way down, I found an other path leading directly in the church (under the pipes of the "Orgel").

In the main room there where again surprising things: on the column they suspended long paper rolls on which they wrote the story of the city or the reason why they called this place: Ankershagen. The story is too long to be told on this blog (it's written on an about 9m long paper roll) but if I make a summary of it, you will understand why it has a so important place in the church: a fisherman made a deal with the evil and didn't wanted to pay his duty (his life) in exchange of the beautiful life he had. So once the evil created a huge storm when the fisherman was on the sea. The poor man asked then God to help him and through out the anker which landed on a tree. And today, the anker is still hanging there and they built a church very close to this place.
This church has also a nice or beautiful project since 2003: they want to write their own bible and to do it, they ask every visitor to copy a part (a sentence or a chapter or so much as you can) of the text. Well there are many other things you can do or see in the small church... finally when I left it, I wrote in the guest book: "nicht die Schönste... aber die Beste". If you get lost once in Mecklenburg, go to Ankershagen and have a look in this church or have a look on the other side of the road: there is a big wooden hors... and the Schliemann Museum (the archeologist who discovered Troya). If you visit it, tell me how it is: one more time they closed the museum am 5pm and I spent too much time in the church!

I ended my day in Buchenhorst. All I can say is the following thing: if you get lost in Mecklenburg, do not go to the camping of Buchenhorst! The reception was just horrible!