Located at the northern tip of Rügen Island, Cape Arkona forms part of the Wittow Peninsula that stretches to the north of Jasmund National Park. It’s home to two historic lighthouses and the Baltic temple fortress of Jaromarsburg, as well as a navigation tower and two military bunker complexes.
Admire the brick architecture of the Schinkelturm, an early-19th-century light-house that stands as the second oldest lighthouse on the German Baltic Sea coast. It’s now home to a small museum where you can learn about the history of Cape Arkona. The Schinkelturm stands near the 35-meter-high New Tower that was built atop an octagonal granite base in 1901 and lies adjacent to the old nav-igation tower of Peilturm that now houses the amber studio of Wiesbaden artist, Nils Peters.
Wander around the ruined ramparts that perch on the edge of Cape Arkona’s cliffs and are all that remain of the Jaromarsburg fortifications. It served as a cult site for the Slavic Rami tribe from the 9th to the 12th centuries before Rügen was conquered by the Danish king Valdemar I in 1168 and the island was converted to Christianity.
Venture into the historic bunkers, one of which dates from the Wehrmacht years and the other from the 1980s when it acted as a command post for the Sixth Flotilla and the Baltic Fleet. Today the older bunker (the Arkona Bunker) houses an art gallery while the newer bunker (the NVA Bunker) features an exhibition of German Democratic Republic military equipment and its Volksmarine naval forces.