Sun, 8 November 2009
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Germany's Baltic Sea resorts may not yet be on the map of globe-trotting travellers - but they will be next year when the G8 summit of industrial nations is hosted at a stunning beachside hotel.Leaders of the G8 will be feted in July 2007 at the spectacular Kempinski Grand Hotel in Heiligendamm, a Baltic coast town deep in what used to be communist East Germany.
Recently opened after major restoration, the hotel complex is a series of classical buildings dating back to 1793 which were one of the nation's top resorts for business, political and aristocratic elites until the rise of the Nazis in the 1930s.
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The Baltic is attracting increasing attention |
Take heart, however, because Heiligendamm is only the flagship of numerous remarkable hotels flourishing in the Mecklenburg-West Pomerania state, just a few hours north of Berlin.
Having sampled many of these resorts on weekend getaways, I have been surprised at high standards of service, food and design.
Splendid facilities and collective farms
The countryside is a pastoral mix of woods and fields covering the rolling north German plain. It was earmarked as a conduit for Warsaw Pact troops to pour into Western Europe in case the Cold War ever became hot. Crumbling former Soviet military facilities still dot the landscape.
Germany's 19th century Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, poked fun at the rustic nature of the region in bon mot many residents now wear as a badge of honour.
"If the world comes to an end, then I'll move to Mecklenburg because everything happens there 50 years later," said Bismarck in one version of his famous remarks.
Nevertheless, anyone planning to visit should be aware the region is part of Germany's economically hard-hit, rustbelt where unemployment is over 20 per cent.
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