On the water: sailing, surfing and fishing

The Bodden is one of Rügen's most rewarding cruising grounds. From harbours such as Breege — with its sailing school, charter outfits and a modern water-sports berth — you can sail well into the interior, with Ralswiek marking the point where you have almost reached the middle of the island. Ralswiek, Polchow, Breege and the Martinshafen at Sagard are the lagoon's principal havens, offering moorings for visiting yachts and easy bases from which to explore the reed-lined bays by boat.↗↗

The shallow water and reliably breezy shore make the Bodden a favourite for windsurfing and kitesurfing, especially on the stretch between Polchow and the Martinshafen and off Lietzow, where you can launch into a long, flat expanse rather than the chop of the open sea. Anglers come for the fish-rich brackish water, and on a calm morning the lagoon gives back the mirror-like reflections that once drew canoeists and painters to its edges.↗↗

Walking the reed-ringed shore

Almost the entire coastline is wrapped in belts of reed, cut back every winter and later sold on to the region's thatch roofers — a quiet craft that gives many Rügen rooftops their soft, golden crowns. Beyond the reeds, long stretches of bank rise into a Steilküste, a low cliffy coast sculpted thousands of years ago by the waves of the old Litorina Sea, when Wittow and Jasmund were still separate islands.↗↗

Several Uferwege, or shore paths, let you follow the water on foot. Among the most scenic are the Gnewer Ufer north of Lietzow, the south shore of the Schaabe, and the gentle section between the Spykerscher See and the Mittelsee near the manor of Schloss Spycker — all good grounds for spotting waders, watching the light change over the flat, and finding the same open horizons that the Romantics painted.↗

Ralswiek and the Störtebeker shows

On the south-east shore, the village of Ralswiek has become the Bodden's liveliest stage. Each summer its open-air festival re-stages the legend of the pirate Klaus Störtebeker, with the drama playing out across a waterfront set where recreated pirate ships manoeuvre on the water and fire flickers against the dusk. For visitors, it is the one evening on the lagoon that turns the whole shoreline into a theatre, and a fine reason to linger around the Bodden past sunset.↗↗

The painters' Bodden

There is a reason this water keeps appearing in the Romantic imagination. The sheer openness of the Großer Jasmunder Bodden, its sunrises and sunsets that burn the low sky in every direction, the reed beds and dark pine belts that frame it — all of it drew Caspar David Friedrich and his contemporaries to these shores, who worked the sweeping views into their drawings and canvases. Stand on the path at Lietzow or Spycker on a still morning and you can see exactly what they saw.↗

Visiting the Bodden

The lagoon is open and free to access at all times, with no entrance or ticket to speak of. Bathing is best at the designated shallow swimming places around Polchow, Neuhof, Lietzow and Banzelvitz, where the gentle slope into the brackish water suits families. Because the Bodden lies behind the island's northern spits, it is noticeably calmer and windier in a useful way than the open Baltic: bring sun and layers, expect breezy afternoons on the water, and aim for the edges of the day — dawn and dusk — when the light across the flat expanse is at its most striking.↗↗↗