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52-679: Sopot is a major health-spa and resort destination. It has the longest wooden pier in Europe, at 511.5 metres, stretching out into the Bay of Gdańsk . The city is also famous for the Sopot International Song Festival , the largest such event in Europe after the Eurovision Song Contest . Among its other attractions is a fountain of bromide spring water, known as the "inhalation mushroom". The city's name

104-422: A sanatorium was opened to the public, as well as a 63-metre pier , cloakrooms, and a park. Haffner died in 1830, but his enterprise was continued by his stepson, Ernst Adolf Böttcher. The latter continued to develop the area and in 1842 opened a new theatre and sanatorium. By then the number of tourists coming to Zoppot every year had risen to almost 1,200. In 1870 Zoppot saw the opening of its first rail line:

156-636: A 60-metre (200 ft) high bungee jump over the North Sea waves. The present pier is a successor of an earlier pier, which was completed in 1901 but in 1943 destroyed by the German occupation forces. The first recorded pier in England was Ryde Pier , opened in 1814 on the Isle of Wight , as a landing stage to allow ferries to and from the mainland to berth. It is still used for this purpose today. It also had

208-530: A holiday resort for the inhabitants of nearby Danzig, as well as wealthy aristocrats from Berlin, Warsaw , and Königsberg . Poles visited the city in large numbers and the spa was very popular among the Polish intellectual elite, to the extent that the early 20th-century Polish writer Adolf Nowaczyński  [ pl ] named it "the extension of Warsaw to the Baltic Sea". Germans and Russians also visited

260-642: A leisure function in the past, with the pier head once containing a pavilion, and there are still refreshment facilities today. The oldest cast iron pier in the world is Town Pier, Gravesend , in Kent , which opened in 1834. However, it is not recognised by the National Piers Society as being a seaside pier. Following the building of the world's first seaside pier at Ryde, the pier became fashionable at seaside resorts in England and Wales during

312-666: A linear littoral quayside, and such piers are usually much shorter. Typically each pier would carry a single transit shed the length of the pier, with ships berthing bow or stern in to the shore. Some major ports consisted of large numbers of such piers lining the foreshore, classic examples being the Hudson River frontage of New York , or the Embarcadero in San Francisco . The advent of container shipping , with its need for large container handling spaces adjacent to

364-477: A new pier was built in 1933. It remained till the present day, but was partially transformed and modernized in 1999–2004. In Nieuwpoort, Belgium there is a pleasure pier on both sides of the river IJzer . Scheveningen , the coastal resort town of The Hague , boasts the largest pier in the Netherlands , completed in 1961. A crane, built on top of the pier's panorama tower, provides the opportunity to make

416-566: A pier has two decks. Galveston Island Historic Pleasure Pier in Galveston , Texas has a roller coaster, 15 rides, carnival games and souvenir shops. Early pleasure piers were of complete timber construction, as was with Margate which opened in 1824. The first iron and timber built pleasure pier Margate Jetty , opened in 1855. Margate pier was wrecked by a storm in January 1978 and not repaired. The longest iron pleasure pier still remaining

468-456: A pier presents a set of different circumstances to fishing from the shore or beach, as you do not need to cast out into the deeper water. This being the case there are specific fishing rigs that have been created specifically for pier fishing which allow for the direct access to deeper water. In Blankenberge a first pleasure pier was built in 1894. After its destruction in the World War I ,

520-489: A result in 1999 Sopot regained its official spa town status. In 1999, Pope John Paul II visited Sopot, about 800,000 pilgrims attended his mass. In 2001, Sopot celebrated the 100th anniversary of its city charter. Sopot is currently undergoing a period of intense development, including the building of a number of five star hotels and spa resorts on the waterfront. The main pedestrianized street, Monte Cassino, has also been extended by diverting traffic underneath it, meaning

572-647: Is at Southend-on-Sea , Essex , and extends 1.3 miles (2.1 km) into the Thames Estuary . The longest pier on the West Coast of the US is the Santa Cruz Wharf , with a length of 2,745 feet (837 m). Providing a walkway out to sea, pleasure piers often include amusements and theatres as part of their attractions. Such a pier may be unroofed, closed, or partly open and partly closed. Sometimes

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624-484: Is one of four Polish towns to have trolleybuses . The others are Lublin , Tychy and Gdynia . There are many popular professional sports teams in Sopot and the tri-city area. The most popular in Sopot today is probably basketball thanks to the award-winning Prokom Trefl Sopot . Amateur sports are played by thousands of Sopot citizens, as well as in schools of all levels (elementary, secondary, and university). Sopot held

676-477: Is the one at Southend. First opened as a wooden pier in 1829, it was reconstructed in iron and completed in 1889. In a 2006 UK poll, the public voted the seaside pier onto the list of icons of England. Many piers are built for the purpose of providing boatless anglers access to fishing grounds that are otherwise inaccessible. Many "Free Piers" are available in larger harbors which differ from private piers. Free Piers are often primarily used for fishing. Fishing from

728-412: Is thought to derive from an Old Slavic word, sopot , meaning "stream" or "spring". The same root occurs in a number of other Old Slavic toponyms ; it is probably onomatopeic , imitating the murmur ( Šepot ) of running water. The name is first recorded as Sopoth in 1283 and Sopot in 1291. The German Zoppot is directly derived from the original name. In the 19th century and in the interwar years

780-621: The Baltic Sea . With time the significance of the stronghold diminished and by the 10th century it was reduced to a fishing village, eventually abandoned. However, a century later the area was settled again and two villages were founded within the borders of today's city: Stawowie and Gręzowo. They were first mentioned in 1186 as being granted to the Cistercian abbey in Oliwa . Another of the villages that constitute today's Sopot, Świemirowo,

832-937: The IAAF World Indoor Championships in 2014 . Major corporations in the town include: Sopot is twinned with: Former twin towns: On 10 March 2022, Sopot terminated its partnership with the Russian city of Peterhof as a response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine . Pier A pier is a raised structure that rises above a body of water and usually juts out from its shore , typically supported by piles or pillars , and provides above-water access to offshore areas. Frequent pier uses include fishing , boat docking and access for both passengers and cargo , and oceanside recreation . Bridges, buildings, and walkways may all be supported by architectural piers . Their open structure allows tides and currents to flow relatively unhindered, whereas

884-699: The Kingdom of Prussia and later in the German Empire . Members of the family served as officers in Prussian and German conflicts including the War of Spanish Succession , War of the Austrian Succession , Seven Years' War , Napoleonic Wars , World War I and World War II . The poet and author Heinrich von Kleist is the most famous member of the family. This article about a member of

936-578: The Kingdom of Prussia in 1772 in the First Partition of Poland . Following the new laws imposed by King Frederick the Great , church property was confiscated by the state. The village was still being reconstructed and in 1806 the area was sold to the Danzig/Gdańsk merchant Carl Christoph Wegner. However, until 1819 it did not develop significantly, its population in 1819 was 350, compared to 301 in

988-602: The Swedish Manor ( Dwór Szwedzki ) ever since. The Swedish Manor was later the place of stay of Polish Kings Augustus II the Strong (in 1710) and Stanisław Leszczyński (in 1733). During the 1733 War of the Polish Succession , Stanisław Leszczyński stayed in Sopot a few days before going to the nearby city of Gdańsk. Afterwards Imperial Russian troops besieged Gdańsk and a year later looted and burned

1040-627: The Victorian era , peaking in the 1860s with 22 being built in that decade. A symbol of the typical British seaside holiday, by 1914, more than 100 pleasure piers were located around the UK coast. Regarded as being among the finest Victorian architecture, there are still a significant number of seaside piers of architectural merit still standing, although some have been lost, including Margate , two at Brighton in East Sussex , one at New Brighton in

1092-790: The Wirral and three at Blackpool in Lancashire . Two piers, Brighton's now derelict West Pier and Clevedon Pier , were Grade 1 listed . The Birnbeck Pier in Weston-super-Mare is the only pier in the world linked to an island. The National Piers Society gives a figure of 55 surviving seaside piers in England and Wales. Von Kleist The House of Kleist is the name of an old and distinguished Prussian noble family , originating in Pomerania , whose members obtained many important military and administrative positions within

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1144-507: The health of sandy beaches and navigation channels . Pleasure piers were first built in Britain during the early 19th century. The earliest structures were Ryde Pier , built in 1813/4, Trinity Chain Pier near Leith, built in 1821, Brighton Chain Pier , built in 1823. and Margate Jetty 1823/24 originally a timber built pier. Only the oldest of these piers still remains. At that time,

1196-465: The 1930s, tensions on the nearby Polish-German border and the rising popularity of Nazism in Germany and also among local Germans saw a decline in foreign tourism. The Nazi Party , supported by many local Germans, took power in the city. Local Poles and Jews were discriminated against and in 1938 local German Nazis burned down Zoppot's synagogue . World War II broke out on September 1, 1939, after

1248-531: The German invasion of Poland . The following day the Free City of Danzig was annexed by Nazi Germany and most of the local Poles , Kashubians , and Jews were arrested and murdered during the Intelligenzaktion , imprisoned or expelled. Due to the war, the city's tourist industry collapsed. The last Wagner Festival was held in 1942. The city remained under German rule until early 1945. In March

1300-466: The German name was re- Polonized as Sopoty (a plural form, closer to the German pronunciation). "Sopot" was made the official Polish name when the town came again under Polish rule in 1945. The area of today's Sopot contains the site of a 7th-century Slavonic (Pomeranian) stronghold. Initially it was a commercial trade outpost for commerce extending both up the Vistula river and to cities north across

1352-773: The Nazis began evacuating the German population along with forced laborers . On March 23, 1945, the Soviet Army took over the city after several days of fighting, in which Zoppot lost approximately 10% of its buildings; three days later, the Soviet 70th Army reached the Gdańsk Bay coast north of the city. As per the Potsdam Conference , Zoppot was incorporated into the post-war Polish state and renamed Sopot. The authorities of Gdańsk Voivodeship were located in Sopot until

1404-482: The School of Music, the School of Maritime Trade, a library, and an art gallery. During the city presidency of Jan Kapusta the town opened an annual Arts Festival in 1948. In 1952, the tramways were replaced by a heavy-rail commuter line connecting Gdańsk, Sopot, and Gdynia . Although in 1954 the School of Arts was moved to Gdańsk, Sopot remained an important centre of culture, and in 1956 the first Polish jazz festival

1456-704: The area and became the owners of all the area of the city. After the Second Peace of Thorn (1466) the area was reincorporated into the Kingdom of Poland . The spa for the citizens of Gdańsk has been active since the 16th century. Until the end of that century most noble and magnate families from Gdańsk built their manor houses in Sopot. During the negotiations of the Treaty of Oliva King John II Casimir of Poland and his wife Queen Marie Louise Gonzaga lived in one of them, while Swedish negotiator Magnus de la Gardie resided in another — it has been known as

1508-559: The city limits, in the place where today the Sopot Festival is held every year. By 1912, a third complex of baths, sanatoria, hotels, and restaurants was opened, attracting even more tourists. Shortly before World War I the city had 17,400 permanent inhabitants and over 20,000 tourists every year. Following the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, Zoppot became a part of the Free City of Danzig in customs union with

1560-472: The city. At the beginning of the 20th century it was a favourite spa of Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany . On October 8, 1901, Wilhelm II granted Zoppot city rights , spurring further rapid growth. In 1904 a new balneological sanatorium was opened, followed in 1903 by a lighthouse . In 1907, new baths south of the old ones were built in Viking style. In 1909 a new theatre was opened in the nearby forest within

1612-469: The end of 1946. Most of the German inhabitants who had remained in the city, by 1 November 1945 6,000 Germans still lived in the town, after the evacuation before the advancing Red Army were soon to be expelled , to make room for Polish settlers from former eastern Polish territories annexed by the Soviet Union . Sopot recovered rapidly after the war. A tramway line to Gdańsk was opened, as well as

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1664-599: The fishing and cargo industries and serves as a port for large cruise ships in the area. Many other working piers have been demolished, or remain derelict, but some have been recycled as pleasure piers. The best known example of this is Pier 39 in San Francisco . At Southport and the Tweed River on the Gold Coast in Australia , there are piers that support equipment for a sand bypassing system that maintains

1716-564: The image of a Victorian cast iron pleasure pier. However, the earliest piers pre-date the Victorian age . Piers can be categorized into different groupings according to the principal purpose. However, there is considerable overlap between these categories. For example, pleasure piers often also allow for the docking of pleasure steamers and other similar craft, while working piers have often been converted to leisure use after being rendered obsolete by advanced developments in cargo-handling technology. Many piers are floating piers, to ensure that

1768-453: The introduction of steamships and railways for the first time permitted mass tourism to dedicated seaside resorts . The large tidal ranges at many such resorts meant that passengers arriving by pleasure steamer could use a pier to disembark safely. Also, for much of the day, the sea was not visible from the shore and the pleasure pier permitted holidaymakers to promenade over and alongside the sea at all times. The world's longest pleasure pier

1820-477: The more solid foundations of a quay or the closely spaced piles of a wharf can act as a breakwater , and are consequently more liable to silting. Piers can range in size and complexity from a simple lightweight wooden structure to major structures extended over 1,600 m (5,200 ft). In American English , a pier may be synonymous with a dock . Piers have been built for several purposes, and because these different purposes have distinct regional variances,

1872-517: The most luxurious hotels in Poland. A Richard Wagner festival was held in the nearby Forest Opera in 1922. The festival's success caused Zoppot to be sometimes referred to as the " Bayreuth of the North". As a result of the influx of Germans in the previous decades, who took over the most important functions in the city, some Poles became Germanized , however a significant indigenous Polish community

1924-488: The new Danzig- Kołobrzeg (then Kolberg ) rail road that was later extended to Berlin . Good rail connections added to the popularity of the area and by 1900 the number of tourists had reached almost 12,500 a year. In 1873, the village of Zoppot became an administrative centre of the Gemeinde . Soon other villages were incorporated into it and in 1874 the number of inhabitants of the village rose to over 2,800. In 1877,

1976-463: The permanent inhabitants of Zoppot, not only for the tourists. Among those were two new churches: Protestant (September 17, 1901) and Catholic (December 21, 1901). From the late 19th century, there was a significant influx of German settlers with the slow growth of the Polish population, resulting in a change in ethnic proportions in favor of the former. Since the late 19th century the city became

2028-461: The pier stretching far enough off shore to reach deep water at low tide. Such piers provided an economical alternative to impounded docks where cargo volumes were low, or where specialist bulk cargo was handled, such as at coal piers . The other form of working pier, often called the finger pier, was built at ports with smaller tidal ranges. Here the principal advantage was to give a greater available quay length for ships to berth against compared to

2080-603: The piers raise and lower with the tide along with the boats tied to them. This prevents a situation where lines become overly taut or loose by rising or lowering tides. An overly taut or loose tie-line can damage boats by pulling them out of the water or allowing them so much leeway that they bang forcefully against the sides of the pier. Working piers were built for the handling of passengers and cargo onto and off ships or (as at Wigan Pier ) canal boats. Working piers themselves fall into two different groups. Longer individual piers are often found at ports with large tidal ranges , with

2132-529: The re-established Polish Republic . Due to the proximity of the Polish and German borders, the economy of the town soon recovered. The new casino became one of the main sources of income of the free-city state. In 1927, the city authorities rebuilt the Kasino-Hotel, one of the most notable landmarks in Sopot today. After World War II , it was renamed as the Grand Hotel and continues to be one of

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2184-657: The remaining two. Also the Sierakowski family acquired some properties, including the destroyed Swedish Manor. After the Partitions of Poland , in the 1790s, Count Kajetan Onufry Sierakowski  [ pl ] built the Sierakowski Mansion at the site of the Swedish Manor, a typical Polish manor house , which remains one of the most distinctive buildings of pre-spa Sopot. Sopot was annexed by

2236-457: The self-government of the Gemeinde bought the village from the descendants of Haffner and started its further development. A second sanatorium was constructed in 1881 and the pier was extended to 85 metres. In 1885, the gas works were built. Two years later, tennis courts were built and the following year a horse-racing track was opened to the public. There were also several facilities built for

2288-504: The shipping berths, has made working piers obsolete for the handling of general cargo, although some still survive for the handling of passenger ships or bulk cargos. One example, is in use in Progreso, Yucatán , where a pier extends more than 4 miles into the Gulf of Mexico , making it the longest pier in the world. The Progreso Pier supplies much of the peninsula with transportation for

2340-521: The term pier tends to have different nuances of meaning in different parts of the world. Thus in North America and Australia , where many ports were, until recently, built on the multiple pier model, the term tends to imply a current or former cargo-handling facility. In contrast, in Europe , where ports more often use basins and river-side quays than piers, the term is principally associated with

2392-539: The village of Sopot to the ground. Much of Sopot would remain abandoned during and in the following years after the conflict, as the patricians of Gdańsk, exhausted by the war, could not afford to rebuild the Sopot residences. In the 1750s, Polish nobility of Pomerania began to rebuild the village. In 1757 and 1758 most of the ruined manors were bought by the magnate family of Przebendowski. General Józef Przebendowski bought nine of these palaces and in 1786 his widow, Bernardyna Przebendowska (née von Kleist ), bought

2444-463: The whole street is now pedestrianized. Sopot, aside from Warsaw boasts the highest property prices in Poland. Among the historic sights are: Other landmarks include: The city is covered by both the Gdynia and Gdańsk municipal bus lines, the regional commuter rail line (with three stops in the city: Sopot Wyścigi , Sopot , and Sopot Kamienny Potok ), and the Polish national railway, PKP. Sopot

2496-536: The year of Prussian annexation. In 1819, Wegner opened the first public bath in Zoppot and tried to promote the newly established spa among the inhabitants of Danzig (Gdańsk), but the undertaking was a financial failure. However, in 1823 Jean Georg Haffner , a former medic of the French army, financed a new bath complex that gained significant popularity. In the following years, Haffner erected more facilities. By 1824,

2548-538: Was first mentioned in 1212 in a document by Mestwin I , who granted it to the Premonstratensian (Norbertine) monastery in nearby Żukowo. The village of Sopot, which later became the namesake for the whole city, was first mentioned in 1283 when it was granted to the Cistercians. At that time it was part of Poland until the 14th-century Teutonic invasion. By 1316, the abbey had bought all villages in

2600-656: Was held there (until then jazz had been banned by the Communist authorities). This was the forerunner of the continuing annual Jazz Jamboree in Warsaw. In 1961, the Sopot International Song Festival was inaugurated, although it was held in Gdańsk for its first three years – it moved to its permanent venue at Sopot's Forest Opera in 1964. In 1963, the main street of Sopot ( Bohaterów Monte Cassino , "the Heroes of Monte Cassino ")

2652-489: Was still present in the city, and there was also a Jewish community. In 1928, the pier was extended to its present length of 512 metres. Since then it has remained the longest wooden pier in Europe and one of the longest in the world. In 1928, the city was visited by 29,192 visitors, mostly Poles and in the early 1930s it reached the peak of its popularity among foreign tourists — more than 30,000 annually (this number does not include tourists from Danzig itself). However, by

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2704-543: Was turned into a pedestrian-only promenade . New complexes of baths, sanatoria, and hotels were opened in 1972 and 1975. By 1977, Sopot had approximately 54,500 inhabitants, the highest ever in its history. In 1979, the historical town centre was declared a national heritage centre by the government of Poland. In 1995, the southern bath and sanatoria complex were extended significantly and the Saint Adalbert (in Polish Św. Wojciech ) spring opened two years later, as

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