Sylt overrun by tourists: holiday madness breaks out after Corona

Friday, June 26th, 2020, 9:54 am

Celebrity meeting, family island, nature experience, yearning and commuter frustration – Sylt is a lot. After a week-long lockdown, the North Sea island has woken up again and is overrun by tourists. A local visit to Sylt in times of Corona.

A long line forms in the parking lot at one of the most famous beach huts in the republic this morning in June. Families with young children, cyclists and couples are patiently waiting in the sun to get a place in the "Zanzibar". At the entrance to the path through the dunes, which leads to the restaurant, there is an employee who regulates the entrance.

Christina is relatively far behind in line with her husband and little daughter. It is 11:15 am – the “Zanzibar” opens in three quarters of an hour.

The Hamburg family actually wanted to go on vacation, "but that wasn't possible," says Christina, who does not want to give her last name. They are often on Sylt. It is so relaxed here, especially with children, she thinks. She likes to queue up for the restaurant with the large playground in the dunes. "It's worth it."

Sylt shortly before Easter: abandoned place of longing

A completely different picture appeared on Sylt in the week before Easter, when tourists were not allowed to enter the island. There are only a few cars in the spacious parking lots, the road across the island is hardly used and the omnipresent cyclists are rarely seen.

Waiting time at DB Autozug? Nothing. The Westerland pedestrian zone? Orphaned. The island lies in a kind of sleeping beauty. And shows its beauty. The dunes, the kilometer-long white sandy beaches, the sound of the sea, the groves, like thatched-roof houses cuddled into the landscape – in the silence it becomes even clearer how beautiful the island is and why Sylt is a place of longing for many people.

"Zanzibar" host is Corona target group "number one with asterisk"

"Zanzibar" host Herbert Seckler drives his black Mercedes up the dune path to the restaurant shortly before 12 noon. He is here every day, even during the Corona period, in spite of his 68 years and despite being "number one target group with asterisks". He moved his "office" outside onto the terrace. "I feel relatively safe here," he says. The lockdown was economically a disaster.

He had already written off the season. But: "If you subtract the economic aspect, it was a great time," he says. «You see things that you normally don't see. Now you only see people and bicycles and bicycles and bicycles. » At 12.01 p.m. the restaurant is full. Rotate waiters with masks to serve guests to collect the contact details.

On the first day of opening for all guests – the Monday before Ascension Day – travelers are immediately drawn back to the island. It is a restart of tourism from zero to one hundred. In the early morning, traffic jams stretched for miles on the access roads to the car loading station in Niebüll. Many drivers drove through the night. Seckler observes that the people who are now allowed to return to the island are euphoric. «They are very happy that they can go back to the island. People come and see the sea. The feeling of happiness is very strong. »

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Aperol lovers, sun worshipers and surfers

Anyone who drives or walks across the island at the end of June, looking into people's faces, can sense the feeling of happiness. Relaxed couples stroll through the Westerland pedestrian zone, sit down for a coffee or an aperitif in one of the reopened cafes. Sun-seekers lie on the beach, some surfers paddle through the surf. The distance, which is sometimes more or less discreetly indicated, can easily be maintained here on the beach.

Luxury coaches cruise along the so-called whiskey mile in Kampen, where “Pony Club” and “Gogärtchen” are located. The places of the outside gastronomy are well filled. Cyclists and pedestrians in windbreakers or beach outfits stroll along the classy boutiques, draw attention to the costly skirts and dresses in the shop window, and look after the Porsches, Ferraris and Bentleys. At the car loading station in Westerland, a young couple in an old VW van is waiting for the car train to the mainland.

Why have these 99 square kilometers of land in the North Sea cast a spell on so many people for decades? Do people buy a million euro house in Kampen or pitch their tent at the campsite? «You can't explain Sylt. You can feel it or not, »says Seckler. The Swabian came to the island 43 years ago. The rest is history.

Some guests might come because they want to watch celebrities, says Seckler. But above all, Sylt simply has a great infrastructure compared to other holiday destinations. «Everyone gets everyone up here. No matter, there is everything here. » You can eat for three euros or in the star restaurant.

At the Red Cliff in Kampen, a man photographs his partner on the observation deck. In the background the beach, the waves, individual beach chairs. Today is her last day of vacation, says the couple, who lives in Schleswig-Holstein near Hamburg.

They were on Sylt for nine days. "We enjoyed it immensely to get out again," she says. Everything is relaxed, even better than expected. Sometimes it is exhausting only when you want to go out to eat. But it's a vacation, so you have to put up with waiting times.

Is tourism rethinking Sylt?

While some are happy that the island is filling up again and financial worries are diminishing, voices among guests and islanders are getting louder – not only on social media – that something is changing, the clocking has to slow down. "We have known for a long time that our guests appreciate sustainable tourism," says Jutta Vielberg from Sylt Marketing. The action is aimed at it – «and we do it not only for our guests, but also for the islanders and the island itself».

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An island, the substance of which forces of nature gnaw. Every year, the Schleswig-Holstein state government spends many millions of euros in preserving the substance and in coastal protection measures such as sand pre-washing. And the problem of plastic waste in the oceans is more visible here on the North Sea island than anywhere else. Various initiatives are committed to sustainable consumption, less plastic and more environmental protection.

Sylt is not just polo and party

Sylt is not just a polo and beach party, a destination for family holidays and cyclists, but also a region in rural areas with problems like elsewhere – just more concentrated. Living space is scarce and expensive, which is why many thousands of people commute daily from the mainland via Hindenburgdamm to their workplace on Sylt. Overcrowded and late trains mean stress at normal times. Now that the Corona virus is circulating and the trains are getting fuller with holidaymakers, there is not only the fear of infection among commuters.

Sylt without vacationers is not imaginable. The island lives 100 percent from tourism, as not only the mayor of the municipality of Sylt, Nikolas Häckel, recently emphasized. And for many islanders this is both a curse and a blessing. After the whaling period it was tourism that brought Sylt wealth.

As early as the 1920s, writers, painters, artists came to Sylt to be inspired by nature. Prominent guests such as Gunter Sachs and Brigitte Bardot came later, celebrating on the legendary “Buhne 16” section of the beach in Kampen and helping to establish the image of the island of the rich and beautiful. Even today, at Pentecost, partygoers meet at “Buhne 16” every year to celebrate. This year – despite the ban on day visitors to the island and distance rules – more people came together than was actually allowed. "Pentecost was already questionable in some places," says "Zanzibar" host Seckler. He is annoyed that "they are risking my life".

And even if the infection numbers in Schleswig-Holstein are very low, outbreaks like that in the Gütersloh district show that Corona is not over yet. "You can't be negligent," says Jutta Vielberg from Sylt Marketing. Despite vacation, despite Sylt.

By Birgitta von Gyldenfeldt (text) and Carsten Rehder (photos)

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