Rīga → Kalmar: round the southern Baltic

Kolka WHERE TWO SEAS MEET

Kolkasrags is the cape where the Gulf of Riga meets the open Baltic. The reef runs on under the water for kilometres north of the cape, and the seas from the two sides meet over it — a bad place in any wind.

The lighthouse stands on an artificial island about 6 km north-east of the cape: the island was built 1872–75, the light first shown in 1884. The tower is 21 m high; its two flashes every 10 seconds carry some 10 NM.

The Irbe Strait between Kolka and the Sõrve peninsula of Saaremaa is the Gulf’s door, some 15 NM wide.

The villages along this shore — Kolka, Vaide, Mazirbe — are the Livonian coast, home of the Livs, a Finnic people with a language of their own; Slītere National Park lies behind the dunes.

Gdańsk THE HANSEATIC PORT ON THE MOTŁAWA

A Hanseatic city for centuries and the port of the Vistula grain trade; the medieval Crane (Żuraw) on the Motława stepped masts and lifted cargo for five hundred years.

Westerplatte at the harbour mouth: the first shots of the Second World War were fired here on 1 September 1939.

The Lenin Shipyard: the Solidarity trade union was born here in August 1980 — the beginning of the end of communist rule in Eastern Europe.

St Mary’s church in the Main Town is one of the largest brick churches in the world; the city is the amber capital of the Baltic.

Rostock WARNEMÜNDE AND THE HANSEATIC TOWN UP THE WARNOW

Warnemünde’s white lighthouse at the mouth of the Warnow was lit in 1898; 37 m high, it is the resort’s landmark, the round “Teepott” beside it.

Rostock’s university, founded in 1419, is the oldest in the Baltic region.

Rostock was one of the leading Hanseatic cities; the towers of its brick Gothic churches — St Peter’s is 117 m — were the seamen’s landmarks.

The Hanse Sail every August brings well over a hundred traditional sailing ships to the Warnow.

Kiel THE SAILING CITY AT THE CANAL’S DOOR

The Kiel Canal (Nord-Ostsee-Kanal), opened in 1895, runs 98 km from Holtenau to the Elbe — the busiest artificial waterway in the world, sparing ships the passage round Skagen.

Kieler Woche, every June since 1882, is the largest sailing event in the world; Kiel held the Olympic sailing in 1936 and 1972.

At Laboe on the firth’s eastern shore stands the 72 m Naval Memorial (1936), the U-boat U 995 beside it on the beach.

The Kieler Förde runs some 17 km in from the sea; the Kiel lighthouse stands in the water at its mouth.

København THE SOUND’S CAPITAL

The Little Mermaid (1913) sits on her rock at Langelinie by the harbour entrance; Nyhavn’s canal and painted houses date from the 1670s.

The Øresund link to Malmö (2000) is a bridge, an artificial island and a tunnel, 16 km in all; ships pass under the 57 m span or over the Drogden tunnel.

From 1429 to 1857 every ship through the Sound paid the Sound Dues to the Danish crown at Helsingør, under the guns of Kronborg — Hamlet’s Elsinore.

The name means “merchants’ harbour”: the city grew round its port, Denmark’s capital since the 15th century.

Bornholm THE GRANITE ISLAND

Denmark’s easternmost island, granite in the middle of the sea — nearer to Sweden and Poland than to Copenhagen.

Hammershus on the northern tip is one of northern Europe’s largest medieval castle ruins, begun in the 13th century; Hammerodde lighthouse marks the island’s north point.

Four medieval round churches, built as fortresses as much as churches — Østerlars is the largest.

The smoked herring from the island’s white smokehouse chimneys is Bornholm’s dish; the Ertholmene islets with Christiansø lie some 18 km to the north-east.

Karlskrona SWEDEN’S NAVAL CITY

Founded in 1680 by King Karl XI as the base of the Swedish navy — the fleet needed an ice-free harbour in the south; it is the navy’s main base to this day.

The naval port, laid out on islands with its docks, rope walk and sheds for the wooden ships, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (1998).

Stortorget on Trossö is one of the largest squares in the Nordic countries, with the baroque Fredrikskyrkan beside the Admiralty church of 1685 — Sweden’s largest wooden church.

The Marinmuseum on Stumholmen keeps the cold-war submarine HMS Neptun.

Kalmar THE CASTLE OF THE UNION

Kalmar Castle, Sweden’s best-preserved Renaissance castle, is where the Kalmar Union of Denmark, Norway and Sweden under Queen Margaret was sealed in 1397.

The Öland Bridge (1972), 6 072 m long, was Europe’s longest bridge when it opened; its 36 m span lets ships through the Kalmar Strait.

The strait between the mainland and Öland is some 130 km long and in places only 5 km wide.

Öland’s southern tip carries Långe Jan (1785), 41.6 m — the tallest lighthouse in Sweden.

Ruhnu THE ISLAND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GULF

Ruhnu, an Estonian island in the middle of the Gulf of Riga, was for centuries home to a Swedish-speaking community — until nearly all of them left for Sweden in 1944.

Its wooden church of 1644 is the oldest wooden building in Estonia.

The lighthouse on the island’s hill (1877) was made of iron sections prefabricated in France and put together on the spot.

Ventspils THE ICE-FREE PORT ON THE VENTA

The port at the mouth of the Venta hardly ever freezes, and it has long been one of the busiest cargo ports on the eastern Baltic.

Ventspils castle was built by the Livonian Order in the 13th century — one of the oldest castles standing in Latvia.

In the 17th century Duke Jacob of Courland had ships built here for his fleet — the duchy that held colonies on Tobago and in the Gambia.

Liepāja WHERE THE WIND IS BORN

Liepāja calls itself “the city where the wind is born” — a windy coast, and a city of music: much of Latvian rock grew up here.

Karosta, in the north of the city, was built in the 1890s as a naval port of the Russian Empire; its domed St Nicholas Naval Cathedral (1903) still stands over the old barracks.

Hel Peninsula THE SAND SPIT OF PUCK BAY

A sandbar some 35 km long and in places only a few hundred metres wide, sheltering the Bay of Puck from the open sea.

In September 1939 the Polish defenders of Hel held out until 2 October — one of the last places to fall in the September Campaign.

At the tip of the spit the University of Gdańsk runs a seal centre, the Fokarium, for the grey seals of the southern Baltic.

Rozewie THE NORTHERN CAPE OF POLAND

Cape Rozewie was long called the northernmost point of Poland; the true one is a little to the west, near Jastrzębia Góra.

Lighthouses have stood on the cliff here since 1822.

Łeba dunes THE MOVING DUNES

Behind the beach near Łeba lie some of the largest shifting dunes in Europe, in the Słowiński National Park — a UNESCO biosphere reserve.

The wind drives the dunes inland by several metres a year, burying the forest as they go.

During the Second World War the German army tested rockets on the dunes at Rąbka.

Cape Arkona RÜGEN’S NORTHERN CAPE

Chalk cliffs at the northern tip of Rügen, Germany’s largest island.

Two lighthouses stand side by side: the square brick tower designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1827) and the taller round one of 1902.

On the cape stood Jaromarsburg, the temple fortress of the Slavic Rani and their god Svantevit, taken by the Danes in 1168.

Fehmarn Belt BETWEEN GERMANY AND DENMARK

The strait between the German island of Fehmarn and the Danish island of Lolland, about 18 km wide — one of the Baltic’s main shipping lanes.

A road and rail tunnel is being built under it: some 18 km of concrete elements laid in a trench dug in the seabed.

Fehmarn is joined to the mainland by the Fehmarnsund Bridge (1963), which the Germans call the “coat hanger”.

Gedser Odde DENMARK’S SOUTHERN TIP

The southernmost point of Denmark, on the island of Falster; ferries run from Gedser across to Rostock.

The Kadet Channel off the point is one of the busiest narrows of the Baltic; deep-draught ships keep to its marked route.

Stevns Klint WHERE THE DINOSAURS’ END IS WRITTEN

A UNESCO World Heritage Site (2014): the cliff shows the thin dark “fish clay” laid down when an asteroid struck, 66 million years ago, at the end of the age of the dinosaurs.

Højerup old church stands on the cliff edge; part of its choir fell into the sea in 1928.

In the Cold War, Stevnsfort under the cliff guarded the southern approach to the Sound; it is a museum now.

Øresund Bridge BRIDGE AND TUNNEL TO SWEDEN

Opened in 2000, the link joins Copenhagen and Malmö: a cable-stayed bridge of almost 8 km to the artificial island of Peberholm, then a tunnel under the Drogden channel.

The Danish end goes under the water to keep the shipping lane and the approach to Copenhagen airport clear.

Falsterbo THE BIRDS’ CAPE

The south-western tip of Sweden: every autumn millions of migrating birds funnel past here on their way south.

In the Middle Ages the herring market of Skanör and Falsterbo was one of the great fairs of northern Europe.

The Falsterbo Canal (1941) cuts across the peninsula so that ships can keep clear of the shallow reef off the point.

Ertholmene DENMARK’S EASTERNMOST ISLANDS

Christiansø and Frederiksø, a tiny archipelago north-east of Bornholm, fortified as a naval base from 1684.

About ninety people live there; the islands are still run by Denmark’s Ministry of Defence.

The neighbouring islet of Græsholm is a bird sanctuary, closed to visitors.

Långe Jan ÖLAND’S SOUTHERN CAPE

Långe Jan (1785), on Öland’s southern cape, is Sweden’s tallest lighthouse, about 42 m.

The Ottenby bird observatory beside it has counted the birds of the flyway since 1946.

The open limestone plain of southern Öland is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (2000).

Kadetrenden THE DEEP ROAD INTO THE BALTIC

Kadetrenden — the Kadet Trench — is the deep channel between Gedser and the German coast: the only route into the Baltic for ships drawing more than about 15 m, and one of the busiest sea lanes in Europe.

A traffic separation scheme runs through it: ships bound east keep to one lane, ships bound west to the other, and a sailing yacht crosses it at right angles, quickly, and does not argue with a 300 m tanker.

Every year some 60,000 ships pass this trench; on a clear night the lights of the lanes look like a motorway laid on the water.

Fehmarn Belt THE BIRD'S FLIGHT LINE

The 'Vogelfluglinie', the bird's flight line, is the shortest way between Hamburg and Copenhagen: a ferry across the 18 km Belt since 1963, 45 minutes port to port, trains and lorries driven straight aboard.

Under the Belt a tunnel is being built — an 18 km immersed tube, the longest of its kind in the world, sunk in sections onto the seabed; when it opens the ferries that have crossed here for sixty years will be history.

The Belt is a bird motorway too: millions of migrating birds cross here each spring and autumn, which gave the route its name long before the ferries.

Drogden THE SHALLOW DOOR OF THE ØRESUND

Drogden is the dredged channel through the shallows south of Copenhagen: only about 8 m deep, which is why the biggest ships into the Baltic must go round by the Great Belt instead.

The Øresund link dives under this channel: 4 km of tunnel from the Danish shore to the artificial island of Peberholm, then the bridge on to Sweden — so that ships keep their fairway and the planes landing at Kastrup keep their sky.

Peberholm, the island built for the link, was left to nature on purpose: biologists have counted hundreds of plant species and a colony of toads that arrived on their own.

The Danish Straits THREE DOORS TO ONE SEA

The Baltic has three doors: the Øresund, the Great Belt and the Little Belt. All Baltic shipping — Riga, Helsinki, St Petersburg, Gdańsk — comes and goes through them, and Denmark sits on the hinges.

For four centuries Denmark charged every ship the Sound Dues at Helsingør; the cannon of Kronborg castle made sure of it. The dues were bought out in 1857, and the castle went on to be Hamlet's.

The Great Belt is the deep door — the 1998 bridge over it, 18 km with a 1,624 m suspension span, has 65 m of clearance so the tallest ships pass under; the Little Belt is the narrow one, 600 m at its tightest.

Salt water comes in through the straits along the bottom and brackish Baltic water flows out on top: the sea here is two layers, and the fish know which one they like.

Lillgrund A WIND FARM IN THE SOUND

Lillgrund, the field of 48 wind turbines south of the Øresund bridge, stands on a shoal in only 4–8 m of water; the turbines are 115 m to the blade tip and feed 60,000 homes.

A yacht may sail between the turbines outside the exclusion zone, and many do — the towers hum, the blades whisper, and the water between them is oddly calm.

Bornholmsgat THE GAP BETWEEN SWEDEN AND BORNHOLM

Bornholmsgat is the 35 km gap between Scania and Bornholm, with a traffic separation scheme down the middle: the big ships stay in their lanes, the yachts keep out of them or cross straight over.

In the war the gap was a smugglers' and refugees' road; today it carries most of the traffic between the western Baltic and Poland, Russia and the Baltic states.

Riga THE CAPITAL ON THE DAUGAVA

Riga is the biggest city of the Baltic states, a Hanseatic port since 1282, with an old town of guild houses and an art-nouveau quarter of 800 buildings — more than any city in the world.

The Central Market occupies five German Zeppelin hangars from the First World War; the fish pavilion opens at dawn.

Riga's radio and TV tower, 368 m, is the tallest in the EU; sailors see it from the Gulf long before the city.

Gdańsk · Gdynia · Sopot THE TRICITY

Gdańsk, Sopot and Gdynia run into one another along the bay: the Hanseatic old town, the spa with Europe's longest wooden pier (511 m), and the modern port built from nothing in the 1920s.

In August 1980 the strike at the Lenin shipyard in Gdańsk started Solidarity; nine years later the Iron Curtain was gone.

Gdańsk's Crane of 1444 could lift two tonnes with men walking inside its treadwheels — the biggest port crane of medieval Europe.

Sassnitz RÜGEN'S PORT

Sassnitz sits under the chalk cliffs of Jasmund; its 1.4 km harbour mole is the longest in Europe you can walk out on.

The ferry to Trelleborg left from here for a century; the railway ran straight onto the ship.

Rostock · Warnemünde THE HANSEATIC PORT AND ITS SEASIDE

Rostock was a Hanseatic power with the oldest university of the Baltic (1419); Warnemünde at the river mouth is its beach, its ferries to Denmark and its cruise-ship quay.

The Hanse Sail in August brings 200 traditional ships into the harbour; the Warnemünde lighthouse (1898) watches them come in.

Copenhagen WONDERFUL COPENHAGEN

The capital grew round a harbour the Vikings fished in; the Little Mermaid, 1.25 m of bronze, has sat on her rock since 1913 and has lost her head twice.

Nyhavn's painted houses were sailors' taverns; Hans Christian Andersen lived in three of them.

Christianshavn's canals were dug by Dutch engineers in the 1600s; Copenhagen was meant to be a northern Amsterdam.

Malmö THE TURNING TORSO'S TOWN

Malmö is Sweden's third city, 20 minutes from Copenhagen over the bridge; its Turning Torso, 190 m and twisted 90° from foot to top, is the tallest building in Scandinavia.

The Kockums shipyard crane, once the biggest in the world, was sold to Korea for one dollar in 2002 — the 'tears of Malmö'.

Kronborg · Helsingør HAMLET'S CASTLE AT THE NARROWS

Kronborg guards the narrowest point of the Øresund, 4 km of water between Helsingør and Helsingborg; for 400 years every ship passing paid the Sound Dues here, under the castle's guns, until the dues were bought out in 1857.

Shakespeare set Hamlet in 'Elsinore' without ever seeing it; the play has been staged in the castle courtyard since 1816, with Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton and Jude Law among the Hamlets.

In the casemates below sits Holger Danske, the sleeping giant of legend who will wake when Denmark is in danger; he has slept through two world wars, which the Danes take as a good sign.

The ferries between Helsingør and Helsingborg cross every 15 minutes, 20 minutes port to port; for a century Swedes went over for cheaper beer and Danes for cheaper everything else.

Hamlet's 'something is rotten in the state of Denmark' is quoted on the quay with some pride; the harbour today is the Maritime Museum, built underground around the old dry dock.