The Sopot Pier, built as a pleasure pier and as a mooring point for cruise boats, first opened in 1827. The next reconstruction extended the length of 150 metres, then to 315 m. The pier was brought to the contemporary length in 1928, along with the walking passage of the spa. The first non-wooden elements appeared after 1990, when the head was modernised using steel elements.
At 511.5m, the pier is the longest wooden pier in Europe. It stretches into the sea from the middle of Sopot beach which is a popular venue for recreation and health walks (the concentration of iodine at the tip of the pier is twice as high as on land) or public entertainment events, and it also serves as a mooring point for cruise boats and water taxis. It is also an excellent point for observing the World Sailing Championship, the Baltic Windsurfing Cup and the Sopot Triathlon taking place on the bay. Sopot pier consists of 2 parts: the famous wooden walking jetty and the Spa Square on land, where concerts and festivities are organised.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.