SUNLOUNGERS are a staple of any beach holiday, in fact holidaymakers won’t remember a time before them.
The lounger was first established in the late 1800s and looks a lot different to how we know them – and in fact, were founded in a small town in Germany.
Warnemünde on the Baltic Coast is recognised as being the home of the first sunlounger.
In 1882, basket maker Wilhelm Bartelmann from Warnemünde had an idea to help a woman suffering from rheumatism to enjoy the beach.
Wilhelm created the chair by basket weaving to provide a protective cover from the sun and wind.
Due to the high demand, Wilhelm and his wife founded the first beach chair hire company near the lighthouse in Warnemünde.
With the sunlounger’s success, beach chairs then popped up in seaside towns neighbouring the North and Baltic Seas.
For anyone heading to Warnemünde, you’ll still be able to find the woven-style chairs, called Strandkorb, on its beaches.
Warnemünde sits just outside of Rostock and is known for its marina and being a cruise-ship stop and it’s beach that is almost two miles long.
One recent visitors wrote of the beach on Tripadvisor: “Finest white sandy beach behind a generously laid out, wide promenade. You could fill hourglasses with this sand.”
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Another called it “one of the best beaches in Europe” and a third said: “The beach in Warnemünde is one of the most beautiful beaches on the German Baltic coast.
“Everything here is open and spacious. The sand has a Caribbean feel to me. We always enjoy coming here.”
Other sites include the Warnemünde lighthouse which was used for more than 100 years.
You can visit the area around the lighthouse for free, but going up the lighthouse tower costs a small fee.
Visitors can then climb up 135 steps to the top for panoramic views over the coast.
Other places to explore is the teapot-shaped building called Teepott with restaurants, cafés, and souvenir shops, and Alter Strom, which was the old trade route into Rostock.
Now it’s lined with fishing boats and on the shore are seafood restaurants, and cafes.
While there are no flights to Warnemünde, you can easily get there via water as plenty of cruises make a stop there.
P&O Cruises offers two itineraries around Northern Europe and Scandinavia that makes a stop in the German port town.
Fred Olsen Cruise Lines also offers a route to Warnemünde for example on its ‘Enchanting Landmarks of the Baltic’.
It starts from Copenhagen to Warnemünde, Gdansk, Klaipeda, Riga and Tallinn.
For more breaks in Germany, this is a European island Brits won’t have heard of that’s like ‘travelling to the 1970s’ with white sand beaches and beer tours.
And here’s a tiny European holiday island that used to be a spa resort where cars are banned.