Neuwerk is a small, car-free island in the Wadden Sea northwest of Cuxhaven. It is officially part of Hamburg, but for travellers it belongs to the North Sea coast: tides, mudflats, birds, and a few houses behind a dike.
The island is worth the effort because the journey is part of the destination. You can arrive by ferry, on a guided low-tide walk across the seabed, or by Wattwagen, the horse-drawn carriages that cross the flats when the tide allows. Once there, the Great Tower gives the island its landmark and its history.
Neuwerk is not a place of many monuments. Its appeal is sharper than that: a very small settled island, a huge tidal landscape, and the feeling that the mainland has briefly dropped away.