Sights in Western Lithuania
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Sand Dunes
Legend has it that motherly sea giantess Neringa created the spit, lovingly carrying armfuls of sand in her apron to form a protected harbour for the local fishing folk. The truth is as enchanting. The waves and winds of the Baltic Sea let sand accumulate in its shallow waters near the coast 5000 or 6000 years ago to create an original beauty found nowhere else.
Massive deforestation in the 16th century started the sands shifting. Trees were felled for timber, leaving the sands free to roam unhindered at the wish of the strong coastal winds. At a pace of 20m a year, the sands swallowed 14 villages in the space of three centuries.
Dubbed the 'Sahara of Lithuania' due to its…
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English-speaking Bird Watching Guide
Two exhibitions rooms inside the Ventės Ragas Ornithological Station explain Nemunas birdlife and an observation deck encourages visitors to spot species first-hand. Vytas is a local English-speaking ornithological guide.
This wetland is a twitcher's heaven. Some 270 of the 325 bird species found in Lithuania frequent the Nemunas Delta Regional Park, many rare birds breeding in the lush marshes around Rusnė, including rare black storks, white-tailed eagles, black-tailed godwits, pintails, dunlin, ruff and great snipe. The common white stork breeds like there's no tomorrow in Ventė.
The Arctic-European-East African bird migration flight path cuts through the park, making…
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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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Nemunas Delta Regional Park
The soggy cluster of islands form a savage but serenely beautiful landscape protected since 1992 by the Nemunas Delta Regional Park. One-fifth of the park is water - which freezes most winters, exposing hardy residents to extreme weather conditions. Rusnė Island, the largest island, covers 48 sq km and increases in size by 15cm to 20cm a year.
Boat is the main form of transport, villagers being transported in and out of the park by an amphibious tractor from March to mid-May, when merciless spring floods plunge about 5% of the park under water. In 1994 flood waters rose to 1.5m in places, although 40cm to 70cm is the norm. Dike-protected polders (land reclaimed from the …
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Ventės Ragas
Ventės Ragas (literally 'world's edge') is a sparsely inhabited area on the tip of the south-pointing promontory of the delta, which, with its dramatic nature and uplifting isolation, is beautifully wild. Bar a few fishers' houses and the lighthouse (1862), the main attraction here is the Ventės Ragas Ornithological Station, 66km south of Klaipėda at the end of the Kintai-Ventė road.
A Teutonic Order castle was built here in the 1360s to protect shipping in the area, only for the castle and its church to collapse within a couple of hundred years due to the severity of storms on this isolated point (in German, it was called Windenburg meaning Windy Castle). The church …
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Basanavičiaus Gatvė Pier
From the end of Basanavičiaus gatvė, a boardwalk leads across the dunes to the pier. The original wooden pier dated to 1888. By day, street vendors sell popcorn, ledai (ice cream), dešrainiai (hot dogs), alus and gira here. At sunset families and lovers gather here on the sea-facing benches to watch the sunset.
From the pier end of Basanavičiaus, a walking and cycling path wends north and south through pine forest. Skinny paths cut west onto the sandy beach at several points and, if you follow the main path (Meilės alėja) south onto Darius ir Girėno gatvė, you reach the Botanical Park where cycling and walking tracks are rife.
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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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Amber Processing Gallery
A key stop on Lithuania's Baltic Amber Road is an old barn that has been renovated and given a lick of yellow paint to become a workshop where raw amber is crafted.
In the 17th century there were a dozen or so such workshops, which today's Amber Processing Gallery, run by the Palanga guild of amber masters, emulates. In the late 1880s Palanga was one of the largest amber-processing centres in the Baltics, its amber products being transported to southern Russia then mailed on to the Caucasus, Germany and France. A gallery sells finished amber pieces (jewellery, sculptures, chessboards etc), as does upmarket amber jeweller Valentina ir partneriai.
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Ventės Ragas Ornithological Station
Bar a few fishers' houses and the lighthouse (1862), the main attraction in Ventės Ragas is the Ventės Ragas Ornithological Station, 66km south of Klaipėda at the end of the Kintai-Ventė road. The first bird-ringing station was established here in 1929, but it was not until 1959 to 1960 that large bird traps were installed here.
Today, one million birds pass through the station each migratory period, zigzag, snipe, cobweb and duck traps temporarily ensnaring birds to be ringed. Two exhibitions rooms inside the station explain Nemunas birdlife and an observation deck encourages visitors to spot species first-hand.
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Mingė
From Nida there are seasonal boats across the lagoon to the delta settlement of Mingė (also called Minija after the river that forms the main 'street' through the village). No more than 100 people live in Mingė - dubbed the Venice of Lithuania - and only two families still speak Lietuvinkai, an ethnic dialect of Lithuanian distinct to the delta.
The 19th-century riverside houses are made of wood with reed roofs and are protected architectural monuments. A good way to explore this area is by bicycle; from Mingė a cycling track runs around Lake Krokų Lanka, the largest lake in the park at 4km long and 3.3km wide.
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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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Ethnographic Farmstead Museum
In the heart of the Nemunas Delta is Rusnė, 8km southwest of Šilutė, where the main stream divides into three: the Atmata, the Pakalnė and the Skirvytė.
In this fishing village there is nothing to do except gawp at its two badly stocked food shops, regret not bringing a picnic to enjoy on its pretty riverbanks, and visit the tiny Ethnographic Farmstead Museum, signposted 1.8km from the village. Exhibitions of traditional tools, furnishings and wooden farm buildings reflect the harsh face of delta life several centuries ago - and today.
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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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Water-pumping Station
Dike-protected polders (land reclaimed from the sea) cover the park, the first polder being built in 1840 to protect Rusnė. The red-brick water-pumping station (1907) near the lighthouse (švyturys) in Uostadvaris, 8km from the bridge in Rusnė, can be visited upon request; you can swim in the river from the small beach here. Many lower polders are still flooded seasonally and serve as valuable spawning grounds for various fish species (there are some 60 in the park).
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Kintai
A Teutonic Order castle was built in Ventės Ragas in the 1360s to protect shipping in the area, only for the castle and its church to collapse within a couple of hundred years due to the severity of storms on this isolated point (in German, it was called Windenburg meaning Windy Castle). The church was rebuilt, only to be storm-wrecked again in 1702. Its stones were used to build a new church at Kintai, 10km north on the regional park's northeastern boundary.
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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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Botanical Park
Lush greenery and swans gliding on still lakes make Palanga's Botanical Park a haven of peace after the frenetic-paced beach and town centre. The 1-sq-km park includes a rose garden, 18km of footpaths and Birutė Hill (Birutēs kalnas), once a pagan shrine. A 19th-century chapel tops the hill. But the highlight of the park area is the Amber Museum which showcases 20,000-odd examples of Baltic gold.
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Basanavičiaus Gatvė
A dead-straight stroll along Basanavičiaus Gatvė is a sight in itself - and the way most holidaymakers pass dusk-lit evenings. Stalls selling amber straddle the eastern end of the street and amusements dot its entire length - inflatable slides, bungee-jump simulators, merry-go-rounds, electric cars, portrait artists, buskers, musicians, and street performers with monkeys. Party madness!
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Kretinga Museum
This winter garden has seen better days but the green-fingered might still enjoy the tropical mirage of 850 species of exotic plants blooming forth in a tatty classical glasshouse at the Kretinga Museum, 10km east in Kretinga. The hot house opened in 1875 in one of the many homes of the Tyszkiewicz family of Polish nobles, but a fire devastated it in 1915 and in 1940 the Soviet Army destroyed it.
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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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Rusnė
In the heart of the Nemunas Delta is Rusnė, 8km southwest of Šilutė, where the main stream divides into three: the Atmata, the Pakalnė and the Skirvytė. In this fishing village there is nothing to do except gawp at its two badly stocked food shops, regret not bringing a picnic to enjoy on its pretty riverbanks, and visit the tiny Ethnographic Farmstead Museum.
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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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Šilutė
The gateway into the extraordinary Nemunas Delta, where the Nemunas River ends its 937km journey from its source in neighbouring Belarus to the Curonian Lagoon, is Šilutė (population 25,000), a sleepy town 48km south of Klaipėda. Šilutė's only hotel is too grim to mention.
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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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Birutė Hill
Once a pagan shrine. According to legend, it was tended by vestal virgins, one of whom, Birutė, was kidnapped and married by Grand Duke Kęstutis. A 19th-century chapel tops the hill.
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