In praise of Warnemunde, Europe’s most boring town

It's the Thames of Germany. You could call it a seaside town, but.. yeh, nah, not so much.

They never show how exhausting travelling is in the postcards or the tourism board posters It's always just relaxing islands, swaying palm trees or exciting city lights.

No 3am mad dashes to catch an overbooked flight, no babies screaming, no rip-off taxi drivers. No rain.

But, hey, you begged the boss for three weeks off, saved all year for a beachside room and read city guides to cram the itinerary to breaking point. This will be worth it. Go hard or stay home, right?

Yes. Push on, "you can sleep when you're dead" is an oft-repeated mantra on my holidays. Whether it's a Friday-Sunday job or a two-week tour it's go, go, go and rightly so.

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One of Warnemunde's only landmarks, a lighthouse in the town centre.

That is until I found myself in Warnemunde. No, I hadn't heard of it either. Don't ask me how it's pronounced. It's on the northern coast of Germany, three hours from Berlin and famous for, well, nothing.

A seaside town – but kind of like how my hometown of Thames could be called seaside. Grey skies and fierce winds that pelted us with sand. Empty seafood restaurants. A shrug of a village made viable only for its cruise ship terminal on the Baltic Sea. Which is, of course, the only reason we had popped in.

But Warnemunde, brimming with mediocrity, was a blessing in disguise. Its depressing seafront, bland retail offering and non-existent nightlife meant there  weren't any "must-dos".  No box-ticking or souvenir tourist maps to shout attractions at you.

You could allow yourself to be bored, guilt-free because there really was nothing. We had dealt with delays on our flight to Berlin and stayed in fifth gear the day before to tour the Reichstag, the Berlin Wall and a Nazi propaganda museum.

We barely had time to squeeze in some pork knuckle, dumplings and a stein. But no such wonders here. At first I was annoyed but it turned out to be brilliant.

Instead we did all those things in great hotels (or in this case, classy cruise ship) that you shell out for but never have any time to actually enjoy: the room service, the spa bath, mindlessly flicking through foreign  television channels to hear your favourite shows dubbed over in German.

For the first time in years I packed my gym kit with me and actually used it. We almost joined the popcorn munchers at the on-board cinema (a lethargic step too far, I thought).

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I think people call it "relaxing" – which is what they do while I'm usually Googling the best-reviewed walking tour or must-visit dinner spot. Whether it was a few book chapters on the balcony or a splash in the pool, you could do it all – so long as it wasn't a tourist attraction onshore – in Warnemunde. 

Our tour continued at sometimes break-neck speed, with the following days in Russia, Estonia and Sweden jammed-packed with museums, restaurants, parks and bars. I wouldn't change that.

Desperate to devour as much as possible in new lands we made the most of the summer solstice's 16 hours of daylight. It catches up with you. You need a recovery day, even when you think you don't. Places like Warnemunde are a way out. Warnemunde is boring. And boring can be bliss.

 - Stuff

Source: In praise of Warnemunde, Europe's most boring town