What are you doing? We wanted freshly tapped beer. And now the waiter puts bottles on the table. A gold-crowned Neptune dangles from a chain on the label. "Na zdrowie," he wishes us, registers our puzzled look and smiles. "That's Sielaw," he points to the blue and yellow label, "according to legend, the king of fish. He is the biggest and cleverest aquatic creature in Masuria. And the terror of all fishermen. If he caught them at work, he would break their nets. And overturned their boats." Well, if that's the case, na zdrowie!
Water, forest and wind. Nobody knows exactly how many lakes here in north-east Poland are a product of the last ice age. There are said to be almost 3000. In addition, there are rolling hills up to 300 metres high and, as the crowning glory of the glacial legacy, around 12,000 square kilometres of dense, primeval mixed forest.
The shooting stars of the navigable hustle and bustle of shallow and channel lakes, canals, rivers and streams are the 114 square kilometre Jezioro Śniardwy (Lake Spiering), followed by the 104 square kilometre Jezioro Mamry (Lake Wall). So it's no wonder that the Masurian Lake District has long been one of the crème de la crème of European inland waterways. We put it to the test and booked a Northman 1200 online.
Summer in Masuria: From Sztynort to Węgorzewo
With the midday bells of the legendary pilgrimage church Święta Libka (Heiligenlinde) ringing out, we now set sail from Port Sztynort (Steinort). St Peter is showing his best side. The sky is cloudless and the onboard thermometer is scratching the 23-degree mark. Nowhere in the world, they say, are there more storks than in Masuria. But unfortunately, none of these white beak-clappers are to be seen. Instead, a colony of grey herons does the honours behind the small Sztynorcki bridge. A couple of beats further on, reed-covered Lilliputian islands come into view: the largest is called Wyspa Upałty. It is 64 hectares in size and belonged to the family of the Counts of Lendorff until the end of the Second World War. But more on that later ...
The "land without haste", as the famous writer Arno Surminski called Masuria, lives up to its name.
After two and a half hours of travelling, we say goodbye to the Jezioro Mamry do widzenia and take the small river Węgorapa (Agerapp) under our keel. After one kilometre, the water divides. The Węgorapa meanders into nearby Russia. And 170 kilometres further north-east, near Kaliningrad, it flows into the Vistula Lagoon as the Pregel and thus into the Baltic Sea. To starboard, a small canal leads to Węgorzewo (Angerburg). We follow the canal, reach the marina of the small town of 12,000 people shortly after 3 p.m., moor, complete the formalities and make our way to the nearest supermarket.
The man at the checkout is a "philanthropist". He registers our well-filled shopping trolley, asks if we are moored in the marina with a charter boat and - poof - offers us a free delivery service. We thank him, arrange a time and then familiarise ourselves with the region's rural past in the open-air museum opposite the marina. The exhibits suggest that life in Masuria was hard. Plague, servitude and, above all, the Thirty Years' War depopulated the land. The tide turned with the Prussian kings. Although Potsdam's "Alte Fritzen" saw the resources of the Masurian forests more as a means of financing their military, the introduction of new agricultural and drainage techniques resulted in richer harvests and, in the end, Masuria even became the granary of the later German Empire.
"Do you want to go to Mamerki?" the harbour master asks us the next day. "Yes," I reply. "Then why don't you stop by Michael Böhmer's on the way," he recommends.
After just under an hour, we reach Port Trygort and Michael's little country inn, Góra Wiatrów. Half a dozen sailing yachts are moored at the jetty. A few metres further on, two out-of-time, four-and-a-half-metre-long plastic-and-elastics boats are rocking. "They're ibises," Michael explains to us later over coffee and homemade chocolate cake. "The boats were built in the GDR. The steering wheel and windscreen are from the Trabi shelf." Trabi shelf? Nostalgia, I can hear you singing ... And I ask if I can take Honecker's contribution to classless water sports for a spin. My crew mates roll their eyes. "Keep your hands off it," they grumble, "who knows what might happen."
Ruins in the forest: Mamerki
As unworldly as the small jetty at Mamerki (Mauerwald) may seem, the history of its surroundings is just as gruesome. It begins with the locks of the 51-kilometre-long Masurian Canal, continues through the bunkers of the Wehrmacht's Supreme Army Command and ends at Hitler's Wolf's Lair. From this control centre 15 kilometres to the south-west, the dictator commanded the Russian campaign, which, according to serious estimates, resulted in the deaths of more than 26 million people. Stauffenberg's assassination attempt also failed here. Although the bomb planted in the meeting barracks detonated, killing four people, Hitler himself was only slightly injured.
We have bicycles on board, lift them off the foredeck, cycle to the nearby OHK bunker facilities and then on to the Leśniewo Górne (Fürstenau) lock. With a length of 42 metres and a drop of 17 metres, it is the giant among the Masurian Canal's ten descending structures. However, the lock was never completed due to the war. And so we look at an overgrown ruin of a building, which - it sends shivers down my spine - still bears the cut-outs for the symbol of horror, the Nazi imperial eagle, on the front wall.
Handicraft for tourists: Giżycko
If you believe the relevant travel book authors, Giżycko (Lötzen) is something like the tourist epicentre of Masuria in summer. We head for the bustling town of 30,000 inhabitants via the Kanał Łuczański. To the right and left of the waterway, puzzled suburban settlements make their appearance. Small bridges move into the picture.
With the Boyen fortress and the 140-year-old swing bridge at the southern exit of the canal, the old Prussia comes to life. The swing bridge (most obrotowy) itself weighs over 100 tonnes and is still operated by hand (!).
We pass the technical antique, set the boat on a course of 170° and cross the well-drained Jeziora Niegocin (Lake Löwentin). After ten kilometres of low-dust cruising under a clear sky, the village of Bogaczewo (Bogatzewen) and with it the small Jeziore Boczne (Saitensee) do the honours. This real-life template for Arno Surminski's literary declaration of love for Masuria is followed by a colourful mix of other small lakes and narrow canals.
Floating economy: the Fishbarka
Adam Nicewicz must have thought he would get back to nature, quit his job in Warsaw and set up a kind of floating ostrich restaurant in the centre of the Masurian lakes. "All homemade," he says proudly. And points to a construction sketch on the wall. His fishbarka, as he calls it, rests on a 250 square metre, T-shaped pontoon according to the plan, has space for 150 guests, a kitchen, toilets, mooring lines for the guest boats and solar panels on the roof.
Every morning, two motorboats manoeuvre the creative construction from the shore into the middle of Jerizo Szymon (Lake Shimon). In the evening, it returns to the shore. The floating restaurant is open from the beginning of June to the end of August. The food is what you would expect from the name and location in the middle of the lake: Fish, fish and more fish ...
Masuria, they say, is the land of old noble residences and mighty knightly castles. Prussia's greatest military heritage is the star-shaped Boyen Fortress. While its cannons were intended to keep the colonial appetite of the Russian tsars at bay in the mid-19th century, Ryn Castle at the northern end of the Jezioro Ryńskie (Lake Rhine) served the Teutonic Knights as a springboard for their eastern conquest campaigns.
From Ryn into the past
We reach the village of the same name at the foot of the castle, which is now a chic hotel, at around 9 pm. We don't feel like cooking. The harbour master assures us that the Gościniec Ryński Młyn restaurant is still open. And the food is good. With our dietary issues resolved, we stroll to the former watermill and are served the house speciality - chrupiąca stynka. The herring-like freshwater stints, dipped in rye flour and fried in bacon and butter, are served with fried potatoes, salad and local craft beer. The culinary delight is rounded off with a quadruple-distilled, slightly earthy, exceptional vodka made from rye called Chopin.
After a good hour on the on-board bike through meadows and forests, we arrive the next morning at the entrance to the bunker site, which covers around 2.5 square kilometres: the Wolf's Lair lies before us. Our first focus is on the site of Hitler's assassination. All that remains of the meeting barracks is the foundation, in front of which a bronze plaque in book form provides information about Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators. Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff was one of them. The then 35-year-old owned Sztynort Castle (Steinort) and the surrounding land, one of the largest agricultural estates in East Prussia. However, he probably did not have much joy in the family seat, which was over 500 years old, during the Russian campaign.
While Hitler was plunging the world into the abyss under the protection of bunker walls up to eight metres thick, his foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop insisted on a more "feudal" workplace. By virtue of his office, he confiscated the west wing of the castle and converted it into the control centre for his crimes of final redemption. Stauffenberg's assassination attempt cost the lives of around 200 co-conspirators; Lehndorff was sentenced to death by the People's Court. His cousin Marion Gräfin Dönhoff, on the other hand, could not be proven to have been an accomplice. When the Red Army arrived at the gates of her estate in early 1945, she fled 1200 kilometres westwards on horseback. A year later, she wrote her first articles for the newly founded "Die Zeit".
Craft beer from the king of fish: Mikołajki
Back to the boat: we take it easy in Masuria, have breakfast on the fly with a view of the castle and set off towards Mikołajki (Nikolaiken) around midday. After a few scattered settlements and a good dozen sailing yachts heading in the opposite direction, the small village of Stare Sady (Schaden) appears on the starboard side. A 989 Platinum Flybridge is moored at the jetty. The words "Browar Mikołajki" are emblazoned on the side of the semi-planing yacht. Coincidentally or not, this is the brewery whose Fischkönig bottled beer we were served on our first evening in Sztynort.
I ask him if the nephew on the label is Sielaw. And why it's hanging on a chain. "Yes," confirms the master brewer, "it's the king of fish. At some point, the fishermen caught him and wanted to kill him. If you kill me, he is said to have threatened, all my subjects will die. Then you will have nothing to eat and will starve to death. Of course, the fishermen didn't want that. They released Sielaw into his ancestral realm, but chained him to the shore as a precaution." A nice story, we smile - and take two six-packs of the Fish King as an anchor beer.
You've only really been where you've walked: It remains to be seen whether this life or rather travel wisdom was penned by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe or is just an invention of the tourism industry.
Anyway, we quickly explored the bustling town of Mikołajki (Nikolaiken), took a look at the Fischkönig fountain on Wolności Square, refuelled and then steamed south along the Jezioro Beldany (Beldahnsee). Our floating holiday flat is now moored in the small marina of the Janus guesthouse just a few metres from the Nowa Śluza Guzianka lock. We've cycled to Krutyń, hired two canoes and are paddling down the Krutynia.
However, we don't really have much time for this. Although the crystal-clear natural idyll is considered one of the most beautiful canoeing areas in Poland, we want - or rather have to - return to Sztynort tomorrow right after sunrise. There we will meet up with Michael Nicklas in the afternoon. The 44-year-old is a teacher of building physics, teaches in Munich and is restoring the dilapidated roof structure of Lendorff Castle together with budding building technicians. The project is being funded by the German Bundestag, among others. "We hope," said Michael Nicklas last week shortly before our cruise started in Sztynort (Steinort), "that the castle will one day become a worthy testimony to the military resistance against Hitler and thus a counterpoint to the Wolf's Lair." At the end of our trip tomorrow, we will see how far his wish has already been realised.
