Tropical Beach

Really, that's what this beach in Helsingborg is called, although it's also referred to as Parapeten (which I believe is what they call the breakwater that forms this part of the harbor). Tropical Beach reflects the beach cafe, the thatched roof, and maybe some wishful thinking. But on a sunny evening (I found it very early on a gray morning), I imagine it's quite popular.

I had gone for a walk - contemplating the reality of being back in Seattle by the end of the day - down to the waterfront. A constant stream of ferries were heading in and out, making the relatively short trip across to Denmark.

AERIAL VIEW

Tropical Beach is tucked into a corner, adjacent to the northern jetty. I wondered if it could have been built out of sediment dredged from the harbor mouth, but it sounds like it may represent a natural accumulation of material against the jetty (given the orientation, it seems that waves would tend to move sediment in this direction).

According to the internet (where else but Wikipedia?), while the beach may have begun forming when the Parapeten was constructed in the late 1800s, the Tropical Beach theme dates back to a 1999 exposition of some sort.

If you search for information about Tropical Beach online, you discover that some people have no sense of humor. Suggesting that this place misrepresents itself seems to miss the whole point. I thought it was a great last beach on our Scandinavian adventure (if you don't count a couple in Iceland we saw from the airplane later the same day).

Mellbystrand

This long stretch of beach lies along Laholm Bay (and the Kattegat), around the mouth of the Lagan River. It's more of your classic sandy beach. Glacial and bedrock influences were much less evident than on most of the beaches we'd visited in the past few weeks. And the beach was much more extensive (it runs at least 10-15 miles along the shore).

AERIAL VIEW

The beach is backed by a broad swath of low dunes and the development looks much like modest residential beach communities elsewhere. We only visited one beach access point, but at least here, the homes all seemed to be well back from the shore. I have no idea if this is planned or fortuitous.

The strandline was marked by windrows of seagrass(?) and seashells.

I thought this might be the last beach of our trip, but as it turned out, I discovered another the next morning (next post).

Fjällbacka

We spent about 24 hours in Sweden, which was just enough time for a few stops along its west coast. The first was Fjallbacka, where we hiked up to the overlook above town. No beaches - just an undulating granitic (or something similar) landscape emerging from the sea.

AERIAL VIEW

Aerial imagery show some small pocket beaches in the general area, although you have to look pretty hard to find them. As ever, for beaches, you need both sediment and a place to keep it. In a glaciated landscape like this, any grus weathered or scraped from the granite was probably carried away by the ice - save for small patches where topography and waves conspire to retain it.