The Łącka Dune (Słowiński National Park)

The Łącka Dune in Słowiński National Park is one of the most striking natural phenomena in northern Europe: a massive wall of white sand, up to 42 metres high, that creeps steadily inland at the mercy of the wind. It has been moving since at least the seventeenth century, and in that time has buried forests, farmland, and the remains of the medieval village of Łącka.

The walk to the dune from Łeba takes around an hour on foot (or less by hired bicycle, available in town). The path follows the beach westward through the park, passing between the sea and Lake Łebsko. When you arrive at the dune, the landscape is genuinely surreal — bare white sand in all directions, broken only by the dead trunks of trees half-swallowed by the advance. Views from the crest stretch across the Baltic to the north and the lake to the south. Słowiński National Park is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve; there is an entrance fee.

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A story
The moving dune advances at roughly 3 to 10 metres per year, pushed inland by Baltic winds. It has already buried and swallowed a nineteenth-century forest, and the dead trunks of pine trees can still be seen emerging from the sand on its eastern face — a forest slowly being exhumed as the dune moves on.