Ribnitz-Damgarten is really two towns that were stitched together by a river. The Recknitz, sluggish and brown as it slides toward the Saaler Bodden lagoon, was for centuries a border: Ribnitz belonged to Mecklenburg, Damgarten to Pomerania, and the two places looked across the water with different rulers and different habits. They merged only in 1950, and the bridge that joins them is still the most important thing in town. It sits on the old main road to the Baltic coast, at the neck of the Fischland-Darß-Zingst peninsula, so nearly everyone riding toward the beaches has to pass through.
The town's best-known attraction is the German Amber Museum, in a former convent. The Baltic produces the finest fossil resin in the world, formed in forests that stood here over thirty million years ago, and pieces of amber with ancient insects trapped in them are the star exhibits. After storms in winter, amber still washes up on the beach, and local hunters walk the strandline with torches. A short way out of town, the bird park at Marlow has a big collection of exotic species and is popular with families.
For the ride, the interest begins as the road crosses onto the peninsula. The B105 runs along a thin strip of land between the Baltic and the Bodden lagoons, through beech and pine forest, past thatched cottages and artists' villages. The roads are flat and generally in good condition, with long, easy bends. Summer weekends bring slow queues of holiday traffic, so ride midweek or early in the morning if you can. In October the area fills with cranes, as tens of thousands gather in the lagoons on their way south, a great sight at dawn.
With seventeen thousand people, Ribnitz-Damgarten has fuel, supermarkets, bakeries and smoked-fish stalls, so it is a sensible place to top up before the peninsula, where services are thinner and prices higher. Try smoked fish with potatoes, and sea buckthorn drinks, a local speciality. The wind off the Baltic can be fresh, and the light, especially at the end of the day, is clear and silvery.