Anklam: Museums, the Peene and Brick Gothic

Museums to explore and try things out

The Museum in the Steintor is housed in a 32-metre-high building: it is the tallest Brick Gothic city gate in Pomerania. The museum is also considered the oldest in Western Pomerania between Greifswald and Szczecin. A visit includes climbing the tower: 111 steps lead up to the fifth floor. From there, you can enjoy a view over Anklam and the Peene Valley marshland. If you enjoy combining views with city history, this climb is a special part of the museum visit.

The Otto Lilienthal Museum offers a different experience. Among other things, it displays aircraft designed by Otto Lilienthal, who made the first safe gliding flights in history in 1891. Self-developed flight simulators, including the Lilienthal cockpit, give visitors a sense of what it is like to fly. Guests can also explore the physical properties of air through numerous hands-on experiments. The museum thus brings historic aircraft and practical experiments together—an interesting combination if you are fascinated not only by the history of flight, but also by its underlying principles.

The Anklam Coin Treasure also offers plenty of specific details: it comprises 2,579 coins as well as silver and gold jewellery and everyday objects. These include garment appliqués and pendants for guild goblets. The treasure is presented as the most significant archaeological find from the period of the Thirty Years’ War in Pomerania. The variety of objects gives the museum visit a distinct historical focus.

Buildings and city history

St Nicholas’ Church is a typical Hanseatic church and council church. It was built from 1280 for merchants, seafarers and fishermen, and has hosted classical concerts since 2018. St Mary’s Church is Anklam’s oldest religious building; its painted decoration is considered particularly worth seeing. If you are interested in churches and their design, you can see these two buildings as distinct points of entry into the city’s history. Anklam Tourist Information provides information about visits to the museums and St Nicholas’ Church.

The historic buildings also include what is now Anklam’s oldest surviving residential house. The cloth merchant Georgius de Ghlin built it in 1406; it is also the city’s only surviving Gothic burgher’s house. Another historic landmark is the mill, built in 1728 as the first Dutch-style windmill in the then-divided Anklam. The former Wehrmacht prison was built between 1939 and 1940 as part of the Nazi military justice system to hold 600 prisoners. These buildings represent different chapters of the city’s history; the prison should specifically be understood as a former site.

The Peene, riverside promenade and waterways

You can explore the Peene from Anklam independently by canoe, rowing boat or raft. On guided beaver tours, visitors can immerse themselves in unspoilt nature from the water. This gives you the choice between exploring independently and joining a guided tour. If you would like to focus your trip more on water-based experiences, this is an important reason to consider Anklam as a destination.

There is also a way to take in the Peene on foot: the riverside promenade starts at the Peenestraße/Peene pedestrian bridge and follows the river towards Görke. The waterway rest area has 13 berths, a slipway, camping facilities, a playground and a social building. These specific amenities make the rest area a useful point of reference for people travelling by water. When choosing where to stay, you can therefore consider whether you mainly want to explore museums and historic buildings or use Anklam as a base for activities on the Peene.

Other destinations in the same navigation: Strasburg, Amt Uecker-Randow-Tal, Ueckermünde, Amt Torgelow-Ferdinandshof, Amt Usedom-Nord, Amt Am Stettiner Haff, Amt Usedom-Süd, Amt Landhagen.

Back to the main travel overview: Vorpommern-Greifswald.