Östliche Altstadt

The idea to this Geocache came to me during a nightly guided tour (Nachtwächtertour). This tour will be most likely very easy for locals, but tourists will be able to “relive” parts of Rostock’s town history.
Vehicles can be parked in several places within the Rostock area, some of them charge a fee, even though a couple of places are free of charge.

PARKING

The parking structure at the Silos (N  54° 5.569' E 0 12° 8.680') charges for a parking ticket. Another possibility is the parking lot at Gerberbruch (free of charge and therefore mostly occupied): N 54° 5.231' E 0 12° 8.936'

Stage 1

Proceed to N  54° 5.419' E  012° 8.885'. If you look north you’ll see a 
historical structure that is 117 m high. Looking southward you’ll see an old building with an inscription. The inscription is called a “chronogram”. 
(please click on the link if you don’t know what a chronogram is – IMPORTANT!). Now establish the year the house was built = ABCD.

Stage 2 

This is the second stop:
N 54° (B-C),C(A+B)A'
E 012° (A+B),(A+B)A(D-C-A)'

South of your current location you’ll find a big historical structure. Looking to the north you can see an old residential building. Take a close look at the wall anchors – they are a clue to the year the house was built =AECE.

Before proceeding to the third stop, you can walk at this point under N  54° 5.269' E 012° 8.821' through the historical structure. Above the arch you can see a picture of the person this building was named after.

Stage 3 

Now go to the third station as follows:
N 54° (E-A),C(E-E)B' 
E 012° (A+B),EA(B-C)'

Here you will find one of the four still excisting town gates (Rostock originally had 22 gates). It’s named after an animal. Look through the gate from the town side to the field side. On the opposite side of the street you can see a building which houses a facility that produces a printed matter typical to Rostock.

The abbreviation of this object is displayed in two blue letters on the roof of the building. The second letter in mobile phone code is F.

Stage 4 - The Cache

The cache is located at 

N 54° (E-A).C(A-A)(B-D)'
E 012° (A+B).(F-4)D(F-4)'

As a bonus you can take a peek at a second town gate: N  54° 5.202' E 012° 8.448'. By now you’re already in downtown Rostock. And this concludes our little excursion. For all of you who liked the trip and would like to learn more about the old part of Rostock I would recommend to go on one of the guided nightly tours. Guided by an “original” night watchman (the so-called “Nachtwächter”) the tour will lead you to places very close to the trip you just took but the Nachtwächter has a wealth of historical stories and anecdotes for all the streets and houses you’ll pass.  

The tour starts at 20:00 on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays not far away from Station 1, the length is approx. 1.5 hrs. More information here Nachtw…… (No, I don’t work on commission J. But I find the tour very informative and well done). This cache can’t replace the Nachtwächterführung. and isn’t intended to, it’s merely an addition.

The cache doesn’t contain a pen. Please bring your own.