The old Hanseatic town of Greifswald lies 5km/3mi west of the outflow of the river Ryck into the Greifswalder Bodden, an offshoot of the Baltic. For centuries the town played an important part in maritime trade. The patriotic poet Ernst Moritz Arndt and the painter Caspar David Friedrich lived and worked in Greifswald.
A wooden bascule bridge based on Dutch models (1887) in Greifswald's district of Wieck is a popular tourist attraction. Also of interest are the old fishermen's and sea-captains' houses (some of them thatched with reeds).
The Cathedral of St Nicholas (originally 13th C.; east end extended and rebuilt in 14th C.; restored 1980-89) in Greifswald, a brick-built Gothic church, dominates the skyline of the town center with its curving Baroque steeple. It contains a Late Gothic painting of the Virgin with seven professors in prayer (presented by Heinrich Rubenow in 1460) and wall paintings of 1420-50.
Greifswald grew up around the Hilda Monastery, which was founded in 1199. It was later dissolved and used as a residence, a university, a quarry, and eventually labeled an ancient monument and preserved.
On the east side of Rubenowplatz in Greifswald stands the old Hospice of St Spiritus (the Holy Ghost), founded in the 13th C. soon after the town was granted its municipal charter as a home for the old, poor and sick.
In the center of Greifswald is the Markt, with the medieval Town Hall (Rathaus), originally built in brick in the 14th century in Gothic style, rebuilt after a fire in 1738-50 and altered in the 19th century and again in 1936, and handsome burghers' houses, also in brick-built Gothic style.
In Rubenowplatz in Greifswald is the Baroque building of the Ernst Moritz Arndt University (1747-50). In front of it is a monument (by F. A. Stüler, 1856) to its founder, Heinrich Rubenow.
Address: Ernst Moritz Arndt University, Domstrasse 11, D-17487 Greifswald, Germany
A few minutes' walk away from the Markt in Greifswald, in Theodor-Pyl-Strasse, can be found the residence of the head of a 14th C. Franciscan friary. It is now a museum (mementos of Ernst Moritz Arndt and Caspar David Friedrich).
Address: Pomeranian State Museum, Rakower Strasse 9, D-17489 Greifswald, Germany
Hours:
May 1 to October 31: 10am-6pm; Closed: Mon
November 1 to April 30: 10am-5pm; Closed: Mon, Mon
Always closed on: Day after Christmas, St Stephen's Day, Boxing Day (December 26), New Year's Eve (December 31), Christmas Eve - Christian (December 24)
Near the Platz der Freundschaft in Greifswald are three churches which feature prominently in the townscape. The oldest of the three, the St-Marien-Kirche (14th C.), very typical of the churches of Mecklenburg and Pomerania with its brick walls and groined vaulting, is of impressive spatial effect. The chapel of St Anne on the south side of the church was built in the early 15th century. Notable features of the interior are the pulpit (1577; fine intarsia work) and a memorial stone (15th C.) commemorating Burgomaster Heinrich Rubenow, who was murdered in 1462.
Greifswald's fortifications, still preserved in part, were mostly built during the siege of Greifswald by Wallenstein in the Thirty Years War (1627-31). The 17th C. Fangelturm in Hafenstrasse was part of the fortifications.
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Hilda Monastery
