In East Germany, the Hotel Neptun was built to impress foreigners. It opened in 1971 on Warnemünde's seafront as a showpiece of the state hotel chain, and it drew international guests even then.

It even had its own money. Guests swapped currency for hotel-only notes called Neptungeld, meant to curb the black market in West German marks. The Stasi, East Germany's secret police, reportedly watched Western visitors closely.

Today the refurbished hotel has more than 300 rooms and a spa on its roof. VoiceMap's self-guided audio tour of Warnemünde points it out, then walks on to the Baltic shore, where some 900 people escaped East Germany by sea.