Hel Peninsula
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Hel Peninsula is located in northern Poland separating the Bay of Puck from the open Baltic Sea and it is 35 km long. It is very attractive region for holidays offering natural and cultural sites. Hel is a town located at the end of Hel Peninsula. Hel was a fishing village in 1198 as well as a centre of herring trade. Hel gained city rights in about 1260 and it was an important trade and fishing centre in the 13th - 15th c. Today it is one of the most popular places for summer holiday. Water sport funs may find something of interest to them like windsurfing or kitesurfing. That is a best place for those kinds of activities due to perfect weather conditions.
Staying at Hel Peninsula, tourists can visit the seal centre - sealarium located in Hel at the Seaside Boulevard. Fokarium consists of a complex of three pools for breeding, several small pools-separatek and building educational laboratory; the Fisheries Museum with an observation tower, historic kashubian cottages, sandy beaches, a lighthouse. Visitors can take a walk along Wiejska Street - an elegant promenade with a length of 900 meters in the center of Hel. The street is located among a town hall, a post office, an antique Maszoperia and numerous cafes. There is also the Hel Fortified Area- a set of Polish fortifications, which was created in 1936. It was the last place of Poland which surrendered to the invading Wehrmacht. The Museum of Coastal Defence presents interesting exhibitions which present the heroism of the defence of Hel in 1939, and the development of the Polish Navy. Hel's Sand Dunes Nature Reserve is an another attraction of the Hel Peninsula. It is a floristic nature reserve in the area of the Coastal Landscape Park. It protects a fragment of the dune sea shore and the specific position of dune vegetation, ecosystems grassland, heath and forest. The oldest historical monument of the town of Hel is a church of St. Peter and Paul from the 15th century. Today, the church houses the Fisheries Museum. Exhibitions at the Museum of Fisheries present the history of the Baltic and fisheries in the Gulf of Gdansk and the Vistula Lagoon, as well as Hel Peninsula's history and its contemporary problems of the maritime economy. In the area of the museum there are traditional fishing boats.
