Dog in a box

What do you do with a bunch of tourists on a Sunday afternoon on a rural island, Rugen, in former East Germany when most tourist attractions are closed?

Our guide struggled.
So it was pure serendipity that we found ourselves in the Altenkirchchen parish church, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s home constituency in Rugen where she gave a speech a few weeks ago.

This 12th century church currently hosts an exhibition documenting life inside the old GDR.

Our guide tells us that it is only now that East Germans are beginning to have the confidence to document their troubled past and this photo from the exhibition shows the inventiveness of people who had very little. (Yes I know it’s cheating a bit but I thought it was far more interesting than the alternative – a sea view of white chalk cliffs).
We should have gone to a fish smokery. Fortunately it was closed. So were the souvenir shops. Thank goodness.