A World of Nature

The natural landscape in the Mecklenburg Lake District – the Mueritz National Park; the Elbe River Country and the Schalsee Biosphere Reserves; the Feldberg Lakeland, Mecklenburg’s Switzerland, the Nossentiner / Schwinzer Heath and the Sternberg Lakeland Nature Parks all speaks for themselves: nature at its most unspoilt. Extensive forests, limpid lakes and fascinating moorlands give the landscape great charm and form the great backdrop for holidays that are simultaneously relaxing and active. Decide each day anew how you wish to spend the best days in your year in our natural world.

Over the years the protected areas for the annual crane migration in autumn have become famous. There are guided tours to the sleeping and resting places of these graceful birds. The National Park and the Nature Parks are not only famous for their rare big birds but also for the great variety of their bird population in general. Over 200 species have been documented. Make use of observation points, such as hides, observation posts and viewing towers for unforgettable encounters with nature.

Mueritzeum
Visit the House of a Thousand Lakes on Lake Mueritz: a nature-experience centre that presents the natural beauty of the Mecklenburg Lake District to visitors of all ages by means of interesting interactive elements. Over an exhibition floor space of approximately 2000 square metres, information, fun and immediate experience combine to give instructive insights into the local world of birds, water and the ecosystems of forest and moorland. Go on a trip through time that will take you back to the Ice Age origins and forwards into the future. The centrepiece of the experience centre is Germany’s biggest aquarium for native freshwater fish.
Further information under: www.mueritzeum.de

Beech Woods
A 244-hectare area of the Serrahn Beech Woods in the eastern parts of the Mueritz National Park is earmarked to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This woodland has not been touched by human hand for over 50 years and gives the visitor an idea of what Germany’s beech forest once looked like. Visitors who wander through the beech woods and the little village of Serrahn at the beginning of May can drink in the fresh shimmering green. The magic of this hilly woodland full of lakes and moors can also be experienced in the colourful display of the late autumn weeks.

Mueritz Bear Woods
Bear country in Mecklenburg? Since 2006 brown bears have found a new home in the Mecklenburg Lake District. Bears which have once been hold in captivity cannot be released into the wild. The Mueritz Bear Woods offer such animals a habitat appropriate to the species, where they can rediscover the behaviour and instincts typical of their species. They stay in the designated area until their natural death. Interesting guided tours, talks and information events are arranged to explain the problems connected with brown bears to the public, in particular to children.
Further information under: http://www.baerenwald-mueritz.de  (available in German only)

The Future Centre: Human Beings, Nature, Science, Technology
Learning from nature and getting to know plants as engineers, technologists and experts in the art of survival. An 18.5-hectare park with 1,000 flowering plant species, 500 fascinating models of ecotechnology/ bionics, a “House of Plant Fragrances”, a 5-hectare ”Forest Science Centre” with many details of tree growth and an underground 40-metre tunnel system under the roots of hundred-year-old trees: all of this awaits you so that you can understand and marvel at the inventiveness of nature. Today, many of these achievements of nature provide model solutions for technology, the design of equipment and the organization of society. Go on a voyage of discovery and see for yourself what fascinating models nature has to offer us!
Further information under: www.zmtw.de  (available in German only)

The Thousand-Year-Old Oaks of Ivenack
Over the centuries Ivenack’s thousand-year-old oak trees have developed into mighty giants so that today they are among the mightiest and oldest oaks in Europe. At the head height of a human adult the mightiest and most beautiful of the Ivenack oak trees has a girth of 10.9 metres and at root level of 16.5 metres. It takes twelve adults holding hands to encircle the trunk of the tree.
The oaks stand in a quasi-open game enclosure for fallow deer. Visitors can walk through the park along ten kilometres of signposted footpaths and look from close to at the animals and the oak trees whose importance is both historical and botanical.
Among other measures, simple barriers around the oak trees help to protect the natural conditions of the so-called animal-pasture woodland and at the same time avoid artificial measures to ensure the care and maintenance of the trees. You can find everything you might like to know about the park in the on-site information pavilion.
Further information under: www.ivenacker-eichen.de