Rediscovering the Old East.(resorts in former East Germany)(Brief Article)

Getting there is half the fun. My convertible blasts along ancient, tree-lined country lanes, through fields of rye ripening under a Curacao-blue sky. Nothing could be farther away from the metropolitan frazzle of Berlin than the wide-open Pomeranian countryside, three hours north of the capital. Past rolling hills and through dusty medieval villages, the road ends at the dock of a small passenger ferry. Across a narrow channel of the Baltic Sea lies a long, low strip of land, reachable only by boat. No cars allowed. Hiddensee is an island time forgot.

Preserved under the glass bubble of communism until German reunification a decade ago, the place is just as it was in the '20s, when Thomas Mann and Albert Einstein summered in its thatched-roof cottages. No roads, motels, neon signs--nothing but a few simple villages, winding bike paths and sandy walking trails. Even in midsummer, its beaches are deserted.

A decade after the fall of the wall, Germany's old East is drawing visitors looking for an older, slower Europe. For 40 years this swath of countryside was off-limits to Westerners; even today, the lake country of Mecklenburg, a 7,000-square-kilometer expanse of woods and water, remains one of the least populated regions of Europe, uncluttered by urban sprawl. But now there are new roads. Towns and hotels have been spruced up. Growing numbers of Germans--not to mention Swedes, Danes and Dutch--are forsaking the crowded beaches of Spain and southern France and heading east instead. "It's like time stood still here," says Peter Gunzenhauser, a Berlin design consultant on a motorcycle tour of Rugen ...