Dinosaur Land (Rügen)

The Spyker Castle (German: Schloss Spy(c)ker) and estate lie on the territory of the municipality of Glowe in the district of Vorpommern-Rügen in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Spycker Castle is the oldest profane structure on the Baltic Sea island of Rügen. Spycker was first recorded in 1318. It belonged at that time to the Stralsund patrician family, the von Külpens. In 1344 a daughter from the House of von Külpen married the Jasmunds. As a result, the Spyker branch of the von Jasmunds was founded which died without issue in 1648. As a result of the Thirty Years' War, Pomerania, and hence Rügen, fell to Sweden under the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. As a reward for his wartime services, Queen Christine of Sweden gave the now empty seat of Spycker in 1649 to the Swedish field marshal and later governor-general of Swedish Pomerania, Carl Gustav Wrangel. The castle, originally furnished with a defensive moat, was remodelled after 1650 into its present appearance as a Renaissance schloss and painted in Swedish Falu red, which was atypical of Rügen. Fully sculptured stucco ceilings, unique in the Baltic region, date to around 1652. After the death of Carl Gustav Wrangel in 1676, the property passed to his daughter Eleanora-Sophia, wife of the Lord of Putbus. Eleanora-Sophia died in 1687, and the property went to the Swedish family of Brahe, with whom her older sister was connected by marriage. After its occupation by the Napoleonic troops in 1806/07 Spycker temporarily became the seat of the French governor of Rügen. In 1815, Rügen, which had hitherto been Swedish, was handed over to Prussia. Magnus Fredrik Brahe sold Spycker in 1817 and it came into the possession of Prince Wilhelm Malte I of Putbus. Until the land reform in the Soviet Occupation Zone in 1945, the estate remained in the possession of the von Putbus family. In subsequent years, the castle was left to decay. From the 1960s until 1989, the East German trade union federation, FDGB, used the castle as a holiday home. Since 1990, the castle has been used as a hotel and, in 1995, it was restored in line with its historical appearance. The hotel has 32 guest rooms. In March 2006, the castle and its 67,000-square-foot estate was purchased at a forced sale by the present owner. The buyer was the architect, Dominik von Boettinger, who, in addition to the hotel and restaurant operation of the castle, also wants to use it as a cultural centre with exhibitions, concerts, readings, and a sculpture park.

The Nardevitz Erratic (German: Findling Nardevitz), also called the Great Rock of Nardewitz (Großer Stein von Nardevitz), is one of the largest glacial erratics in North Germany. It lies about 400 metres north of Nardevitz, a village in the parish of Lohme on the island of Rügen. Surrounded by trees and bushes as well as other drift material that was in the way of farming, it lies in the middle of a field. Its volume is estimated at 104 m³, which gives it a mass of 281 tonnes. The above-ground portion has a volume of 71 m³. It is therefore, apart from Buskam which lies in the Baltic Sea off Göhren, the largest erratic on Rügen and an important geological sight. Because the Nardevitz Erratic was used for a long time to obtain construction material, it is suspected today that it was once three times its present size. For example, in 1854 and 1855, column drums weighing about five tonne and pedestal blocks, up to 2 tonnes in weight, for the Prussian Columns near Neukamp and Groß Stresow were hewn from the rock. On the rock itself there are clear traces that show there were plans for further destruction of the erratic. Today the Nardevitz Rock, like around 20 other erratics on the island of Rügen, is one of its legally-protected geotopes. It is recorded in the relevant register at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern State Office for the Environment, Conservation and Geology (Landesamt für Umwelt, Naturschutz und Geologie Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) as entry "G2 75".

The Gesundbrunnen Sagard ("health spring of Sagard") was a spa and bathing institution in Sagard on the German Baltic Sea island of Rügen. Opened in 1795, it made Sagard the first bathing resort on Rügen and founded a healing spring establishment, that lasted until about 1830.

The Dobberworth or Dubberworth is one of the largest prehistoric tumuli (Hügelgrab) in northern Germany, located on the isle of Rügen near Sagard. The Dubberworth is about 15 metres (49 ft) tall, and was made from an estimated 22,000 m3 of earth, making it the largest tumulus of Rügen. Archaeologists were not yet able to date the tumulus precisely, but assume it was used during the Bronze Age. The etymology of the name is also uncertain, "-worth" is linked to an old designation for an "elevated estate" ("Worte", "Wurt"). According to local legends, the Dubberworth was made by a giant who intended to fill a narrow ford linking two nearby Bodden and lost the clay on their way. In one legend, the giant was a female on her way to exact revenge on a prince of Rügen who did not love her back, in another legend it was male giant Scharmak on his way to his girl-friend. A further legend tells about dwarven dwellers and large amounts of gold inside the hill.

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

Sagard (German: Bahnhof Sagard) is a railway station in the town of Sagard, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. The station lies on the Stralsund-Sassnitz railway and the train services are operated by Ostdeutsche Eisenbahn GmbH.

Battle of Rügen was a major naval battle fought on August 8, 1715 off Jasmund on the Swedish island of Rügen (present-day Germany) during the Great Northern War. In the Swedish navy 20 ships of the line and two frigates participated, in the Danish 21 ships of the line and four frigates. The battle ended with a Danish strategic victory but was tactically inconclusive. No ships were lost on either side but many soldiers were either dead or wounded – Sweden: 478, Denmark: 612.

Großer Wostevitzer Teich is a lake on Jasmund peninsula of the island Rügen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. At an elevation of 0.2 m, its surface area is 0.743 km².

Jasmund is a peninsula of the island of Rügen in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is connected to the Wittow peninsula and to the Muttland main section of Rügen by the narrow land bridges Schaabe and Schmale Heide, respectively. Sassnitz, Sagard and the Mukran international ferry terminal are on Jasmund. Jasmund is also famous for the Rügen Chalk cliffs within the Jasmund National Park, a nature reserve in the northeast of Rügen island.

The Großer Jasmunder Bodden belongs to the Northern Rügener Boddens and is a water body on the southern edge of the Baltic Sea in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It is a bodden, a type of lagoon that occurs in northern Europe especially on the coast of Pomerania. It lies within the island of Rügen, is around 14 kilometres long, an average of six kilometres wide and is up to nine metres deep with an average depth of 5.3m. The Großer Jasmunder Bodden has an area of 58.6 square kilometres; if the Breetzer Bodden, Breeger Bodden, Lebbiner Bodden, Neuendorfer Wiek and Tetzitzer See are included the total area of water comes to over 94 square kilometres. The lagoon is bounded to the north by the peninsulas of Wittow and Jasmund, which are linked by the narrow spit of Schaabe. To the south of the bodden is the main body of the island of Rügen, Muttland. To the east near Lietzow it is linked to the Kleiner Jasmunder Bodden by a ditch and sluice gate. The two bodden were first separated in 1869 by the construction of an embankment that now carries the B 96 federal road and the Stralsund–Sassnitz railway. In the west at the Wittow Ferry the bodden has a narrow branch running into the lagoon of Rassower Strom and is thereby linked to the Baltic Sea. The western part of the bodden is further sub-divided into the Breetzer Bodden, Breeger Bodden and Lebbiner Bodden, which, strictly speaking, are not part of the Großer Jasmunder Bodden. The north of the bodden is less divided. Only the Spykersche See near Spyker pushes east forming a small bay. By contrast the southwestern shore is more indented, with the Tetzitzer See and the Neuendorfer Wiek pushing well inland. The extreme southeastern shore of the bodden near Ralswiek is the venue for the Störtebeker Festival that takes place every summer. The water of the Großer Jasmunder Bodden is a mix of fresh water from the streams that discharge into it and the salty waters of the Baltic and is classed as brackish water with a salt content of 0.7 to 0.8 per cent. Almost the entire shore is girt with reeds. In places the shoreline forms sea cliffs that were formed thousands of years ago by breakers in the Littorina Sea, when the islands of Wittow and Jasmund were still not linked by the Schaabe. The bodden is rich in fish and is also used for bathing and sailing. There are important harbours in Ralswiek, Polchow, Breege and St. Martin's Harbour in Sagard.

Sassnitz Fährhafen (German: Bahnhof Sassnitz Fährhafen) is a railway station in the town of Sassnitz, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. The station lies on the Stralsund–Sassnitz railway and the seasonal train services are operated by Hanseatische Eisenbahn.

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