GERMANY’S “BRIGHTON”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18990, 11 October 1923, Page 10

GERMANY’S “BRIGHTON”

HEKIXGSDORFS GAY LIFE. “THE HUSBAND’S EXPRESS.’’ Every Saturday afternoon during the summer months Berlin business men rush off to the station to catch the “Husband s Express’’ for ITcringsdovf. So many, indeed, are there that tho train has to be run in three sections. The travellers talk but little as the train speeds northward towards the Baltic. Many go to sleep, hut at. each stop of tho tram all of (hem are wide awake and tumble out of tho carriages, with a desperate rush for tho refreshment bullet, whore frantic scrimmages take place. Then off again, till at last Ileringsdorf is reached. On tho plattorm, awaiting their lords, arc crowds of stout German women, mostly dressed in white —and such multitudes of children as were never seen before. You wander down to the shore and all you see is a. succession of low sandbanks with here and there a marine plant to break the monotony. Far away in the distance, if the tide is out, is a grey, oilylouking, uninteresting sea. To reach its edge you cross the dunes, your feet sinking into the sand at every step you take. it. is weary walking there 1 At lad you come to the sea, extending right into the "edge o’ beyond." Behind you is the shore; no cliffs, no rocks, no distant trees; nothing there but sand, always, always sand. Such is Tlcringsdorf, tho Brighton of the Baltic, and all Baltic towns are like that. Each has its casino, in tho centre of the ‘■front.” and facing it, a long wooden pier, going far out into the sea. THE BATH IN G ESTABLISHMENT. But, rivalling tho casino and the pier in importance is the bathing establishment, open only from eight in the morning till two in tho afternoon. It is horse-shoe in j shape, with the men’s cabins on the one hand and the women's on the other. Tho architect of it is fanciful and Byzantine in type, curious in tho extreme. Sun baths are much in favour. Clad in scanty, low-necked, sleeveless pyjamas, the visitors lie sprawling about on the sand like so many lizards, roasting themselves brown in the scorching rays of tho sttn. Friendships spring up between the various groups of sprawlers. They laugh, they joke, they flirt. Some have parasols and some have fans. Some, strut about arm-in-arm, from group to group, arrayed most gorgeously in all the colours of tho rainbow. A gramophone suddenly breaks forth into some popular dance music. 'Mien those who are tired of playing lizard rise up and shake themselves and begin to’ dance. GAMBLING AND DRINKING. Night falls and still the people dance, for they are off to the casino now, where they can gamble and drink ns well till the early hours of another dawn. Every window is thrown wide open, for the heat within is something stifling. Then, mosquitoes, attracted by the light and warmth, enter the ballroom, nnd, darting hither and thither, buzz and sting as they go. Good dinner, excellent music, plenty of movement, Berlin well represented; Russia and the Argentine as well. The women in evening dress, the men anyhow, some of them in shirt-sleeves, all madly, wildly dancing. Scattered here and there, on tables end buffets, are iced drinks galore, tho favoured one being a mixture of Moselle, champagne and brandy, with strawberries thrown in or other fruit instead. Such is life as it is lived in the summer at Heringsdorf, Germany's Berlin-by-the-Bea, "Pearl of the Baltic” as they are pleased to call her.