Lake Svityaz

Svityaz is an almost perfectly round lake of about two square kilometres set in pine and mixed forest, with clear water and a sandy bottom, and it holds a place in literature: Adam Mickiewicz, who grew up nearby, wrote the ballad Switez about it, telling of a city that sank beneath the water and the women who were turned into flowers to escape invaders, and the poem fixed the lake in the Polish and Belarusian literary imagination. The shore has a beach, a small resort area and campsites, and the surrounding forest is protected as a landscape reserve with a rare aquatic flora including the isoetids that need very clean water.

What you actually see

• The round lake - the near-circular sheet of clear water.
• Pine forest shore - the woodland running down to the sand.
• The literary association - the Mickiewicz ballad attached to the lake.
• The beach - the swimming area on the northern shore.

When to go

June to August for swimming, which is the main use; the water is cold outside high summer. Weekends fill the beach. Autumn in the surrounding forest is quiet and colourful.

Honest expectations

The lake is small and half a day covers it. The beach area is developed and busy in summer. Some shore sections are private or charged. Facilities outside the resort area are minimal.

Nearby

Novogrudok lies west; Zaosie is southeast.