Kranich Museum

Saal is a municipality in the Vorpommern-Rügen district, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. The community is under administration of the small city of Barth. Saal has first been documented in a deed of the city of Barth in the year of 1255. At this time there was an already abandoned Slavic castle by the mouth of the Saal creek into the Saal “bodden”. The population around 1255 consisted of indigenous Slav, migrants from Westphalia and Denmark. The first church already existed and was completely made of wood and sanctified to the “Holy Cross”. From today's village Tempel, at the time a commandery, knights templar arrived at Saal. The order of knights was in search to expanding Northeast, and had to take provisions securing its continuity as the Holy Land was lost. The order induced the erection of the church, which until this date dominates impressively the scenery and gives a different impression of Gothic architecture. Everything at this church is characterized by ‘shiftings’: windows, portals. The frayed walls are evidence of both planned or symbolic annexes and continued constructions. The entry to the underground walkway, behind the altar, can still be seen. It is said to end somewhere by the “bodden”. Underneath the bell tower (1731) standing aside from the actual church, is a hollow space, which however, had never been explored. According to the legend a part of the templar treasure was brought here around 1300. One of the templar stole a part of the treasure and hid it in one of the column foundations. It was said to be the vanished imperial regalia of John Lackland, which he lost in unclear circumstances in 1216. Legend: Until 1309 the templar rebuilt the castle at the „bodden“ and used it as a port facility. Today, only the castle ramparts testify of the once great times. The Vitalian Brotherhood under Stoertebeker (.../succession order of the templar in Portugal) had used the castle until 1391 and are said to have brought the treasure under the bell tower to this place. After they were involved in a fight with the Danes on the Ribnitz Sea, they had to flee and never returned to Saal. The treasure is said to be still somewhere there. Today the templar in Saal are forgotten; only Stoertebeker is sometimes spoken about. Suggestion: Who ever comes to Saal, should not miss visiting an ancient stone circle, the apostle stones.

Ribnitz-Damgarten () is a town in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany, situated on Lake Ribnitz (Ribnitzer See). Ribnitz-Damgarten is in the west of the district Vorpommern-Rügen. The border between the historical regions of Mecklenburg and Pomerania goes directly through the town; Damgarten is the eastern and Pomeranian part, and Ribnitz is the western and Mecklenburgian part.

The Saaler Bodden forms the southwestern part of the Darss-Zingst Bodden Chain and lies east of the Fischland peninsula about 30 kilometres northeast of Rostock. Its average depth is around two metres, which restricts angling and the use of pleasure craft. It is a lagoon-like stretch of water known as a bodden, which is typical of this part of the Baltic coastline. South of the Saaler Bodden is the town of Ribnitz-Damgarten, which is divided into two by the mouth of the 72 kilometre long Recknitz river. This southern part of the bodden is called the Lake Ribnitz (Ribnitzer See). Apart from the Recknitz near Damgarten, the other streams that empty into the Ribnitzer See are the Klosterbach near Ribnitz and Körkwitzer Bach and Fischergraben near Körkwitz. A stream called the Saaler Bach (in its lower reaches known as the Ziegelgraben) discharges into the bodden near Saal. To the northeast the Koppelstrom links this bodden to the next one in the chain, the Bodstedter Bodden. Two former channels to the Baltic Sea, the Permin and the Loop, silted up in the 14th century. The water of the Saaler Bodden is weakly salty (1-3 permille).

The Recknitz (historically known as Raxa) is a river in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in northeastern Germany. The Recknitz's glacial valley stretches as far south as the heights at Glasewitz near Güstrow. The river has no definite source, but rather builds up from streams and drainage ditches. The ditches of the Schaalbeke and Pludderbach have their water flow split between Liessow and Laage, but most of the water flows north as the Recknitz, while the lesser flow, called the Augraben, runs south to the river Nebel. The lower Recknitz (from Ribnitz-Damgarten to Bad Sülze) is the historic boundary between Mecklenburg and Vorpommern. Nowadays, however, it is only a boundary between the Mecklenburg Regional Evangelical-Lutheran Church and the Pomeranian Evangelical Church. Starting at Tessin, the Recknitz is navigable by canoe the year round. A number of measures have been undertaken along the river's course to restore the natural environment. Along one stretch of 30 km, three sections of riverside have been declared nature protection areas. The Recknitz empties into the Saaler Bodden, the coastal waters of the Baltic Sea near Ribnitz-Damgarten. In October 955 A.D. the vicinity of river was the site of famous Schlacht an der Raxa (Battle of Recknitz) between the German (Saxons and Frisians) army of Emperor Otto I of Germany commanded by Gero the Great and the Obodrite and other Polabian Slavs warriors army under prince Stoigniew, brother of prince Nakon.

Wieck auf dem Darß is a municipality in the Vorpommern-Rügen district, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany.

The Darss-Zingst Bodden Chain (German: Darß-Zingster Boddenkette) is a waterbody on the Baltic Sea coast northeast of Rostock in Germany. It consists of a string of several lagoons or bodden arranged in an east–west direction that are separated from the open sea by the Fischland-Darß-Zingst peninsula. The surface area of these lagoons is 197 km2 and the average water depth is only about two metres. The individual lagoons of the Darss-Zingst Bodden Chain are the: Saaler Bodden Bodstedter Bodden Barther Bodden and Grabow(listed from west to east; not mentioned here are several smaller stretches of interlinking water). The salt content of the water rises from west to east, because only at the eastern end of the bodden chain is there a link to the Baltic Sea via the Gellenstrom stream and the small opening between Großer Werder and Kleiner Werder, where the waters are able to mix. There used to be other links to the sea like the Prerowstrom stream to the north (dammed after 1872) and the Permin and Loop by Fischland to the west (dammed in the 14th century). The rivers Recknitz and Barthe discharge into the Darss-Zingst Bodden Chain and, in all, it has catchment area of 1,578 km2. On the south shore of the bodden chain lie the towns of Ribnitz-Damgarten and Barth. The northern part of the Darss-Zingst Bodden Chain belongs to the Western Pomerania Lagoon Area National Park.

The Bodstedter Bodden is a lagoon, of the type known as a bodden, that is part of the Darss-Zingst Bodden Chain and the Western Pomerania Lagoon Area National Park in northeastern Germany. It lies south of the peninsula of Fischland-Darß-Zingst on the coast of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The heavily indented, reed fringed shoreline forms a picturesque landscape with the result that the villages near the shore are popular tourist destinations. The western boundary of the bodden with the Koppelstrom forms the so-called Borner Bülten (Bulte i.e. small swampy, islands of reed). The Koppelstrom is the transition to another lagoon, the Saaler Bodden. To the east the Bodstedter Bodden is separated from the Barther Bodden and Zingster Strom by the Meiningen Narrows. To the south of the bodden is the lake of Redensee and the village of Fuhlendorf. To the northeast, the Prerower Strom, a former estuary, empties into the bodden. The deepest point of the bodden (10 metres in depth) lies just in front of the Meininger Bülten, the small reed islands by Meiningen. The rest of the bodden is only rarely deeper than 3 metres.

Ribnitz-Damgarten West (German: Bahnhof Ribnitz-Damgarten West) is a railway station in the town of Ribnitz-Damgarten, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. The station lies of the Stralsund–Rostock railway and the train services are operated by Deutsche Bahn.

Pruchten is a municipality in the Vorpommern-Rügen district, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany.

Prerow is a municipality in the district of Vorpommern-Rügen in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. This Baltic seaside resort on the Darß peninsula is located about halfway between the historic Hanseatic towns of Rostock and Stralsund. It is one of three main settlements on the Darß, the others being the villages of Born and Wieck. Prerow has fine, sandy beaches and a picturesque landscape. It is hard to say where the forest ends and the village begins. The primeval Darß Forest has over 50 km of footpaths and cycle ways, a bridleway and tracks for horse-drawn carriages. West of the forest is West Beach with rugged terrain formed by wind and waves. South of Prerow is the bodden countryside. Visitors can take trips on a steam paddle boat and experience wildlife first-hand, nesting areas and various birds as the seasons change. The seaside resort of Prerow is located within the Western Pomerania Lagoon Area National Park which stretches from Ahrenshoop along the southern coast to the island of Hiddensee. Prerow itself was a fishing village, but has now been a seaside resort for over 130 years. Thanks to its varied climatic environment with the sea, meadows, forest and reeds, combined with good water quality, it was always recognised as a health spa. In 1998, the Minister of Social and Economic Affairs officially recognized the village as a seaside and health resort.

The village of Althagen on the peninsula of Fischland-Darß-Zingst in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has been a part of the municipality of Ahrenshoop since 1950. Until 1945, the border between Mecklenburg and Pomerania ran between Althagen and Ahrenshoop along the border road, Grenzweg. The Bakelberg knoll lies close to the steep coast of Althagen/Niehagen. At 17.9 metres above sea level, it is the highest point on Fischland. Althagen has a port on the bodden coast.Well known residents of Althagen include the designer, Gertrud Kleinhempel (1875-1948), the writer, Käthe Miethe (1893-1961) and (from 1944) the well-known artist couple Fritz Koch-Gotha (1877-1956) and Dora Koch-Stetter (1881-1968). Koch-Stetter's 1911 expressionist painting, The red house in Althagen, is one of her most famous works to this day. From 1955, Fischland Pottery (Fischlandkeramik), was developed in their ceramics workshoops by the next generation of the artist family of Koch [-Gotha and -Stetter], artist and potter, Barbara Klünder (1919-1988), and her husband, the artist Arnold Klünder (1909-1976) together with artist, Frida Löber (1910-1989) and the sculptor and potter, Wilhelm Löber (1903-1981).

The Prerower Strom, Prerow Strom or Prerowstrom is an arm of the Baltic Sea in northeast Germany. It begins near the island of Schmidtbülten in the Bodstedter Bodden and winds its way through the countryside of the peninsula of Fischland-Darß-Zingst, where it separates Darß from the peninsula of Zingst. It ends at the harbour of the village of Prerow that gives it its name. The Prerower Strom is part of the Western Pomerania Lagoon Area National Park.