Blogging on the Baltic

Posted by Mark Silva at 3:10 pm CDT

HEILIGENDAMM, Germany -- The Baltic Sea beach outside the resort hotel in Heilgendamm where President Bush is spending the night is closed to sea-bathers for the duration of Bush's stay here, per orders of the mayor.

Bush is arriving this evening at the Kempinski Grand Hotel -- and they aren't kidding about the name, Grand -- on the shore of the Baltic in the tiny resort of Heiligendamm.

This hotel will serve as the site for the German-hosted Group of Eight summit in 2007, and for good reason. This is a beautiful spot on the sea. The president is staying in the castle, on a campus of white-skinned classical buildings along the beach here.

For now, it serves as the resting place for Bush during a two-day tour of the northeastern German region that Chancellor Angela Merkel calls home.

Settling in for the evening here, it was clear that every provision had been made for Bush's arrival, with gunboats of the German Navy and divers in motorized rafts circling the waters offshore from the hotel and a growing contingent of security personnel and black Mercedes assembling here.

The helicopters are starting to circle in the sky, as Bush lands in nearby Rostock and travels by helicopter to the Kempinski.

In the morning, we will leave from here by helicopter for the welcoming ceremonies, including that traditional gift of a barrel of herring.

In the interest of research, I ordered some of those herring -- "a trio of herring'' -- at dinner tonight as I watched the sun set on the Baltic. I'll take a barrel.

That sunset occurred some time after 9:30 pm, local time. They say it really won't get dark here until 11 and then the sky will lighten again at 3 am, local.

So I took this moment to blog about the sun set on the Baltic, which was cool this evening -- somewhere in the mid-60s, Farenheit, they say. It seemed warmer to me, as I slipped my toe into the sea, but refrained from full immersion, per orders of the mayor.

(Photos by Mark Silva.)