Sights in Klaipėda
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Teatro Aikštė
Little of German Klaipėda remains but there are some restored streets in the oldest part of town wedged between the river and Turgaus aikštė. Pretty Teatro Aikštė is the Old Town focus, dominated by the fine classical-style Drama Theatre (1857). Hitler proclaimed the Anschluss (incorporation) of Memel into Germany to the crowd on the square from the theatre's balcony.
In front tinkles a fountain dedicated to Simon Dach, a 17th-century Klaipėda-born German poet (1605-59), who was the focus of a circle of Königsberg writers and musicians. On a pedestal in the middle of the water stands Äennchen von Tharau (1912), a statue of Ann from Tharau sculpted by Berlin artist Al…
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Švyturys Brewery
Reservations are essential for tours of Klaipėda's Švyturys Brewery , rebuilt after WWII. Švyturys is the big-brand beer to drink. Tours of 1½-hour duration depart at noon Wednesday and Friday.
Brewed in Klaipėda by Lithuania's oldest operating brewery (since 1784), the market leader comes in eight types ranging from the light fresh golden Gintarinis to the old-style unfiltered Baltas (shake before opening) and the strong, dark, amber-coloured Baltijos. Danish beer giant Carlsberg Breweries bought a controlling stake in Švyturys in 1999 and four years later scooped Utenos into its corporate fold, managing the two breweries under controlling company Baltic Beverages Ho…
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Curonian Spit National Nature Museum
The Curonian Spit National Nature Museum is in three wooden houses, incorporating the birds and mammals, plants and insects, and landscape sections of the museum painted yellow, green and brown.
About 700m further north are old fishing vessels, including three Baltic Sea fishing trawlers built in the late 1940s and a 1935 kurėnas (a traditional 10.8m flat-bottomed Curonian sailing boat used for fishing). Next door, the Ethnographic Sea Fishermen's Farmstead, with its collection of traditional 19th-century buildings (the granary, dwelling house, cellar, cattle shed and so on) proffers a glimpse of traditional fishing life.
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Klaipėda Castle Museum
West of Pilies gatvė are the remains of Klaipėda's old moat-protected castle. The Klaipėda Castle Museum inside the one remaining tower tells the castle's story from the 13th to 17th centuries.
To get to the museum, walk through the Klaipėda State Sea Port Authority building and a ship-repair yard. Incredibly, this rundown ramshackle yard is the first thing the 20,000 passengers a year who step off luxury cruise ships in Klaipėda see! The cruise ship terminal (www.ports.lt) shares the castle site.
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Martynas Mažvydas Sculpture Park
In true Lithuanian style, Klaipėda is studded with great sculptures, including 120-odd from the late 1970s in the Martynas Mažvydas Sculpture Park and a monumental 3.5m one in granite of the geezer the park is named after - Martynas Mažvydas, author of the first book published in Lithuanian in 1547 - on Lietuvninkų aikštė.
Martynas Mažvydas Sculpture Park was a German cemetery in the 1820s.
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Mary Queen of Peace Church
There is no higher spot from which to survey the city than atop the 46.5m tower of Klaipėda's Mary Queen of Peace Church. The enormous concrete church was built in 1957, shut by the Soviet authorities the moment it was complete in 1960 and used as a concert hall until 1988, when the church was reconsecrated and Mass celebrated for the first time. Book a visit through the tourist office.
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Lithuanian Sea Museum
Equally crowd-pleasing are the sea lion and dolphin shows at the Lithuanian Sea Museum, 1.5km from the passenger ferry landing (for Old Castle Port ferries) at the tip of the peninsula. Seals dance on the rocks and sea lions splash around in the moat around the 19th-century fort in which the aquarium is housed.
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Clock Museum
All manner of clocks - from Gothic to nuclear - tick inside the Clock Museum. Carillon concerts are held in its back yard on summer weekends at noon; the 48-bell carillon is in the 44m bell tower of the neighbouring neo-Gothic post office.
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Klaipėda University
Klaipėda University is magnificent. Founded in 1991, it's located in red-brick 19th-century Prussian military barracks, home to the 3rd Coastal Division when Estonia was part of the USSR.
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Picture Gallery
Liepų gatvė - home to the Picture Gallery with works by Lithuanian expressionist painter Pranas Domšaitis (1880-1965) - was called Adolf-Hitler-Strasse for a brief spell.
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Baroti Gallery
The Baroti Gallery is partly housed in a converted fish warehouse (1819). Its exposed-timber style, called Fachwerk, is typical of German Memel.
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Blacksmith's Museum
The cute Blacksmith's Museum displays crosses, candlesticks and other ornate forged-iron works.
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Lithuanian Minor History Museum
The Lithuanian Minor History Museum traces the early history of Lithuania Minor.
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Klaipėda Art Exhibition Palace
Some excellent modern art hangs in the Klaipėda Art Exhibition Palace .
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