Cape Arkona is the northernmost point of Rügen and, for a thousand years, it was where the western Slavs kept their holiest place. On this chalk headland, about forty-five metres above the sea, the Rani tribe built a temple fortress dedicated to Svantevit, a god of war and fertility with four heads, and the whole Baltic knew it. In 1168, the Danish king Valdemar the Great, with Bishop Absalon, sailed up, stormed the fortress, cut down the idol and converted the island by force. The earth ramparts of that stronghold, the Jaromarsburg, still curve across the headland, and half of it has been eaten by the sea over the centuries.
Two lighthouses stand on the cape. The older was built in 1827 to a design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the great Prussian architect, as a square brick tower of simple dignity, and it is now a museum with a view from the top. Beside it, a newer lighthouse dating from the early twentieth century has taken over the job, and a concrete bunker and radar tower left by the military sit close by, a strange modern addition to the headland. A few hundred metres away, the small fishing village of Vitt has thatched cottages in a hollow near the sea, with a tiny chapel and a few boats pulled up on the stones.
Cars are not allowed to the tip. You park at Putgarten and walk the last kilometre, or ride in a small tourist train, a rule that keeps the headland quiet. The ride from the south, via Altenkirchen, is flat and easy, with long avenues and wide fields, and the road is generally good but busy on summer weekends. The wind can be fierce on the open cape, so plan for it. This is the Baltic, where the weather comes straight from the sea, and the temperature on the cliff can be several degrees colder than in town.
Altenkirchen and Wiek are small, and the safest approach is to start with a full tank from Sassnitz, which is about twenty kilometres away, or Bergen. There are cafés and fish stands in Putgarten, and the fried herring sandwich is a good way to warm up.
Stand at the cliff edge on a clear day and the horizon is a perfectly flat line of water, with nothing between you and Scandinavia.