Greifswald and Eldena Ruins

Caspar David Friedrich was born in Greifswald in 1774 and grew up with the ruins of Eldena abbey on the town's edge, a Cistercian house dissolved in the sixteenth century and quarried for stone until only fragments of the brick church stood. He drew and painted it repeatedly, moving it into invented landscapes, and it became one of the defining images of German Romantic painting. The town holds a university founded in 1456, one of the oldest in northern Europe, and a museum with a substantial Friedrich collection. The old harbour at Wieck has a wooden bascule bridge and fishing houses.

What you actually see

• The Eldena ruin - brick abbey fragments Friedrich painted repeatedly.
• The Friedrich collection - works and drawings in the town museum.
• The 1456 university - among the oldest in northern Europe.
• Wieck harbour - a wooden bascule bridge and fishermen's houses.

When to go

May to September; the ruin is freely accessible year-round and is at its most Romantic in fog or snow, which is when Friedrich painted it. Museums close Mondays.

Honest expectations

The ruin is fragments in a park, smaller than the paintings suggest. Friedrich's major works are in Dresden, Berlin and Hamburg, not here.

Nearby

Stralsund lies north; Usedom is east.