Rostock, a city on the German Baltic Sea

Rostock is the largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern with 208,000 inhabitants and the third largest city on the German Baltic coast after Kiel and Lübeck. Rostock is located at the mouth of the Wonow River in the Mecklenburg Bay of the Baltic Sea. The city stretches for about 16 kilometers along the river, which flows into the sea in the northernmost part of the city, between Warnemünde and the Hochdunes. Rostock is the economic center of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the only regional metropolis. The Port of Rostock is the fourth largest port in Germany after the North Sea ports of Hamburg, Bremerhaven and Wilhelmshaven, and is the largest port on the German Baltic coast. The ferry route between Rostock and Gesel in Denmark and Trelleborg in southern Sweden is one of the busiest routes between Germany and Scandinavia. It is also one of the ports of call for many cruise companies on their Nordic routes. Whenever a cruise ship leaves, many residents come to see it off. The city is home to the oldest university in the Baltic region and one of the oldest universities in the world, the University of Rostock, founded in 1419. Rostock's strategic location was so important that the Danes and Swedes occupied the city twice, first during the Thirty Years' War from 1618 to 1648 and again from 1700 to 1721. For about a decade at the beginning of the 19th century, French troops under Napoleon occupied the city until 1813. During World War II, Rostock suffered repeated and increasingly intense bombing raids, especially by the Royal Air Force. These include the 14th-century Church of St Nicholas and St Jacob, the ruins of which were demolished in 1960. It was captured by the 2nd Belorussian Front of the former Soviet Union during the Stettin-Rostock offensive on May 2, 1945. After the war, Rostock became the largest coastal and most important port city in East Germany. #greentourism #germantravel #overseastourism #cruisetourism #cruiseterminalview #staycation #deutschland #rostock