Sea and walks
The water, the woods, the walks
Distances are measured from Fjädergränd 10. Driving times assume normal traffic.
At the door
Sandskogen
Walk south from the door past the small‑boat harbour and within three to five minutes you are inside Ystads sandskog, the pine and oak reserve that runs east along the coast. The reserve covers 140 hectares and stretches nearly four kilometres from the marina to the Nybroån river. It was designated in 1989. The pines themselves were planted through the 1800s for a practical reason: deforestation had let sand blow inland and bury fields. The trees were the fix, and the fix is now the local woodland.
A paved promenade runs the full length of the beach, used by walkers, cyclists, runners and prams. Swimming jetties are spaced along the strand, with the largest cluster around Saltsjöbad. The sand is fine and the water shelves gently, which is why this is the everyday beach for Ystad families. Parking is free at Jaktpaviljongsvägen, Harstigen, Snurrevägen and Badstigen, but if you walk from the door you will not need it.
Dog rules matter here. From 1 April to 30 September dogs are banned from the beach itself; the rest of the year they are welcome on a leash. Riding is forbidden in the same season. Sandskogen is part of Natura 2000, which means the understorey of lingonberry, bilberry and heather is left to grow as it would. Little terns and Sandwich terns feed on the shallow banks.
The famous one
Sandhammaren
Twenty‑seven kilometres east, about 28 minutes by car along road 9 then south through Löderup, lies the beach voted Sweden's best more times than any other. Sandhammaren is several kilometres of very fine white sand backed by tall marram‑grass dunes, the sea pale green where it shallows over the sandbanks. The lighthouse, designed by Nils Gustaf von Heidenstam, has been in operation since 1862 and is open for guided climbs in high summer. The lifeboat station, established 1892, is the oldest in Sweden.
Currents are the thing to know about Sandhammaren. The same sandbanks that gave the beach its name shift constantly, and rip currents run perpendicular to the shore. Swim parallel to the beach rather than out from it, and do not let small children drift unsupervised. In calm weather, in July and August, it is safe and beautiful. In an onshore wind with a swell on it, swim somewhere else.
Parking is the second thing to know. The main car parks fill by mid‑morning on warm July days and the road shoulder fills behind them. Arrive before 10:00 or after 16:00. A quieter alternative is to turn off the coastal road toward Backåkra and walk down to the beach at Tyge Å, a kilometre west of the main entrance.
Reserve and ridge
Hagestad and the Skåneleden coast
Sandhammaren beach sits at the eastern end of Hagestads naturreservat, 375 hectares of dunes, sand heath and gnarled oak woodland established in 1960. The reserve protects the largest broadleaf and pine area on the south‑east coast and a list of rare plants that read like a botanical roll‑call: stor sandlilja (Sand Pink), praktnejlika, backsippa, fältsippa. They flower in May and June and pickers will be reported. Moose are present though rarely seen; roe deer are everywhere; foxes, badgers, hares. Golden orioles and nightjars sing in the woodland edge in summer.
Skåneleden SL4 Österlen stage 2, Nybrostrand to Löderups Strandbad, is the coastal walk between Sandskogen and Hagestad. It is 18 km, rated red for difficulty mostly because of length, and runs through the sand‑steppe along the Kåsebergaåsen ridge with views over Hanöbukten the whole way. The flowers in spring are the reason to do this stage in May: cowslip, pasqueflower, dropwort. Stage 3 continues from Löderups Strandbad to Borrby strandbad through Hagestad itself. Bus 322 runs back to Ystad from both endpoints.
The headland
Stenshuvud, Sweden's southernmost park
Fifty minutes north‑east of the door, past Simrishamn on road 9, is Stenshuvud, declared a national park in 1986 and covering 400 hectares including 80 hectares of sea. The headland rises 97 metres straight from the Baltic, three peaks of bedrock the inland ice never planed flat. The forest on its lower slopes is mostly hornbeam, unusual this far north, with beech, oak and lime. About 600 vascular plant species have been recorded inside the park boundary.
Near the top sit the remains of an early Iron Age fortress, fifth or sixth century, the stone ramparts still readable on the ground. Lower down are Stone Age graves and the traces of medieval farm tracks. Cattle graze the meadows from mid‑May to mid‑November to keep the grassland open. Roe deer, fallow deer and wild boar live in the woods; the offshore rocks attract grey seals. The Naturum visitor centre at the foot of the headland is open daily through the summer and Tuesday to Sunday in spring and autumn; it closes through December, January and most of February. The main loop walk is around 4 km and takes about two hours with the climb.
Working harbours
Fishing villages east of Ystad
Kåseberga
20 min east
The most photographed of them. The harbour sits in a fold of cliff with the Ales stenar stone ship setting (59 stones, c. 600 AD) on the ridge above. Climb the wooden steps from the harbour for the view. Kåseberga Fisk has been smoking herring, eel and salmon since 1968. Surfers and kitesurfers use the bay when the wind is from the south‑west.
Skillinge
35 min east
A working fishing village with a small active harbour, a maritime museum, a sailmaker's loft turned exhibition space, and Hamnkrogen for fish soup and beer.
Brantevik
35 min east
Five kilometres south of Simrishamn. The largest sailing‑ship port in 19th‑century Sweden, with 118 vessels registered at its peak. Two harbours, north and south, both quiet now, and a row of skipper's houses along the shore.
Simrishamn
40 min east
The main town of Österlen. The working harbour still lands cod, herring and flatfish, and Bornholmslinjen sails from here in summer alongside the year‑round Ystad service. S:t Nicolai kyrka, named for the patron saint of sailors, was first recorded in 1161. Swim from Tobisvik just north of town or from the jetty at the south end of the harbour.
West of Ystad
Smygehuk and Falsterbo
Smygehuk
25 min west
The southernmost point of mainland Sweden. The hamlet has a working fishing harbour, a 17‑metre lighthouse from 1883, the old keeper's cottage now a hostel, a maritime museum inside Kaptensgården, an art gallery in the former salt store, and Cafe Smyge, Sweden's southernmost café. Nine of the ten original limestone kilns are still standing along the shore. The shore is flat limestone shelf, good for paddling and rock‑pool hunting with children but exposed in a southerly.
Falsterbo and Skanör
90 min west
The twin villages at the very tip of Skåne, on a sand peninsula. The beaches are long, shallow and warmer than the Ystad side because the bays trap the sun. Skanörs Havsbad has the brightly painted bathing huts; Falsterbo Strandbad has the wider beach. The peninsula is one of Europe's premier bird‑migration sites: honey buzzards from mid‑August, the raptor peak in September and October, sparrowhawks, buzzards, red kites in their thousands. The Falsterbo Horse Show runs 4–12 July 2026.
Lighthouses
Visitable lights
- Sandhammaren fyr (1862)29 m of cast‑iron tower, Heidenstam design, open for guided climbs in summer. Lifeboat station next door.
- Smygehuk fyr (1883)17 m at the southernmost point. Climbable in season for a small fee; view from Bornholm to the Falsterbo peninsula.
- Falsterbo fyr (1796)17 m, the oldest functioning lighthouse on the south coast, surrounded by the Falsterbo Bird Observatory ringing station. Climb by appointment.
- Hanö fyr (1906)On the island of Hanö, 16 m, one of the brightest in the Baltic, visible 40 km out. Boats from Nogersund, a day trip rather than an afternoon.
- Kullens fyr (1900)At Mölle on the Kullaberg peninsula, two hours north‑west. The most powerful lighthouse in Scandinavia.
Where to go for what
Beach by beach
- For small children Saltsjöbad and the central jetties of Sandskogen. Shallow, sandy, kiosk for ice cream, ten minutes by bike from the door.
- For cold‑water plunging the jetty at the Saltsjöbad bath house in winter, or the steps off the eastern breakwater of Ystad harbour. Tobisvik in Simrishamn has a small kallbadhus association that swims year‑round.
- For distance swimming the Sandskogen stretch east of the marina has the most open water and the fewest swimmers; you can do a kilometre parallel to the beach in summer.
- For sunsets the western breakwater of Ystad harbour faces straight into them. Smygehuk in summer for the open horizon.
- For surf and kite Sandhammaren in a south‑easterly, Vitemölla and Kivik in a southerly, Kåseberga in a south‑westerly.
- Quietest Tyge Å, Mälarhusen, Borrby Strand, the dunes east of Löderup.
The cold habit
Kallbadhus
Ystad Saltsjöbad has run a bathing operation on this stretch of coast since 1897, half an hour on foot or ten minutes by bike east along the coast. The current spa has indoor and outdoor pools, two saunas (one with sea view), an ice‑hole and an Asian‑style warm pool. Non‑residents can buy day passes.
The most famous kallbadhus in Skåne is Ribersborgs Kallbadhus in Malmö, an hour west, opened June 1898 by C.A. Richter, rebuilt after a storm in 1902. Separate men's and women's sections (nude bathing is the norm in the saunas, swimsuits are fine in the sea), five saunas including a wood‑fired one, and a café. Open year‑round.
The Swedish cold‑bath habit runs on a simple cycle. Twenty minutes in the sauna at 80 to 90 degrees, two or three minutes in the sea, ten minutes resting in the air, then back to the sauna. Three rounds is standard. Sea temperatures off Ystad sit around 2 to 4 degrees in January and February, climbing to 8 by April, 16 to 18 by July, back through 12 in October.
The Skåneleden coast
Walking from Ystad east
- Stage 1Ystad–Nybrostrand. 8.1 km, easy, 2–3 hours. Promenade through Sandskogen. Bus 322 back.
- Stage 2Nybrostrand–Löderups Strandbad. 18 km, challenging. Crosses the Kåsebergaåsen ridge above Ales stenar.
- Stage 3Löderups Strandbad–Borrby Strandbad. 11 km through Hagestad reserve and Sandhammaren.
- Stage 4Borrby Strandbad–Skillinge. Coastal, fishing villages, harbours.
- Stage 5Skillinge–Simrishamn. 14 km on cliff and pasture, ending at the harbour town.
Across the water
Ferries to Bornholm and Poland
Bornholmslinjen runs year‑round from Ystad commercial harbour to Rønne on Bornholm, about 80 minutes, around 34 sailings a week in summer. The terminal is 15 minutes' walk east of Fjädergränd 10. Day‑return is feasible: leave mid‑morning, ride bicycles around the north coast of Bornholm, last ferry back in the evening.
Polferries and Unity Line run from the same harbour to Świnoujście in Poland, 6.5 to 8 hours, two daily departures in summer and reduced in winter. The night sailing has cabins and a buffet dinner.
Cared for by Dennis, Linn and the boys