This small town situated at the tip of the Hel Peninsula is over 700 years old. When coming to the Hel Harbour, visitors should head for the protestant church of St. Peter from the 15th century, now a location of the Fisheries Museum, to see the exhibition of fishing boats and equipment from the area of Gdańsk Bay and Southern Baltic Coast.
The exhibition provides an interesting insight into the history of the Baltic Sea with its flora and fauna, and the history of Hel; it also displays boat building workshops and paintings inspired by the marine topic. The church bell-tower, more than 70 feet high, now a viewpoint, offers a magnificent panorama of the military harbour and harbours, Gdańsk Bay and the town.
Near the Small Beach we will find a modern seal aquarium, belonging to the Marine Station of the Gdańsk University's Institute of Oceanography, with a charming family of seals. It all started with a town's little favourite, a grey seal called Balbina found on a beach near Jurata a few years ago (later Balbina turned out to be male and had to have her female name changed to Mr Balbin).
Hel's seal aquarium is not only a local attraction for tourists, but also a vital contribution to the project of restoring seals in the Baltic Sea.
The Hel promontory is the point where the waters of the Great and Small Sea meet. There we can see how the waves of the two water regions overlap, creating a beach by depositing sandy matter precipitated from the sea water. The promontory is marked with a buoy floating at a distance of about 1000 feet from the coast.
At the little square near Wiejska and Żeromskiego Streets, the visitors will see a monument to Stefan Żeromski, a famous Polish writer from the beginning of the 20th century. The monument has a shape of a seal in reference to marine motifs in the writer's works. In 1979, the monument to the Hel's defenders of 1939 was unveiled. That monument is composed of two columns decorated with the Polish eagles and medals for highest merits, the Virtuti Militari Cross and Grunwald Cross. The exhibition of marine armour, with guns, mines and torpedoes, is located near the Officers' Club.
