Prerow is a small seaside town on the Darß, a peninsula on Germany's Baltic coast, wedged between the sea and a lagoon called the Bodden. It's been a bathing resort for well over a century, with a long wooden pier, wind-bent pines, and a beach that arte once named one of the twenty most beautiful in the world. It's quiet, unhurried and genuinely wild in parts, more forest and dune than promenade.
This is the slow living guide to Prerow.
Where to eat
Darßer Braugasthaus
A long-loved local brewery restaurant, hearty and unpretentious, the kind of place regulars come back to year after year.
Ostseelounge, Strandhotel Dünenmeer
The special-occasion table, an elegant seven-course menu inside the town's design hotel, with fresh Baltic and lagoon fish at the centre of it. Book ahead.
Hein & Stin
Prerow's own café and ice cream spot, said to have the best ice cream on the Darß. Good for an afternoon stop with a view of the harbour.
The beaches
Nordstrand
The main beach, wide, pale sand and shallow, safe water, watched over by lifeguards through the summer. Good for families, with beach-chair rental, kiosks and a stretch for dogs. There's a marked nudist section too, a long local tradition here.
Weststrand
A wilder, thirteen-kilometre stretch on the national park side, reachable only on foot, by bike or by horse-drawn carriage. Pine forest runs right down to the water, and storm-toppled trees lie where they fell. Look out for the windflüchter, pines bent almost flat by decades of wind, and keep an eye out for amber after a storm.
The Prerow pier
A long wooden pier running nearly 400 metres out into the Baltic, open since 1993 and one of the town's real landmarks. Good for an evening walk, watching anglers try for herring and cod, especially at sunset.
The forest, the lagoon, and slow days
Behind the town, the Darß forest and the Bodden lagoon are part of the Vorpommersche Boddenlandschaft national park, and worth building a day around. Walk or cycle out through the forest to the Darßer Ort lighthouse at the peninsula's tip, or take a boat across the Bodden to see the lagoon side of the coast. The neighbouring villages of Wieck and Born, right on the Bodden, are worth the short trip, quieter still than Prerow itself.
Prerow rewards the slow approach: a walk out the pier at sunset, a long stretch of beach with nothing on it, and days that run to the tide rather than the clock.
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