Lithuania

There is a dreamy quality to Vilnius (vil-nyus), especially in the golden glow of a midsummer evening. Lithuania's capital has an Old Town of rare authenticity: marvellously intact, its pebbly streets are lined with weather-worn period buildings that hide cafes, boutiques and dainty guesthouses.

Vilnius doesn't hide its battle scars. The city was once nicknamed the 'Jerusalem of the north' but its Jewish community was largely destroyed in WWII. Reminders of loss are everywhere: museums dedicated to the Holocaust, former ghettos, preserved KGB torture chambers and cemeteries filled with the war dead.

Though a capital city, Vilnius feels much like an overgrown village. It's carpeted with green spaces, which cover around 40% of its area, and studded with venerable Catholic and Orthodox church spires. But this is no Eastern European antique: artists, punks and a self-declared micro-nation keep Vilnius cutting-edge.

On this bewitching tendril of land, winds caress the sand dunes, pine scents the breeze and amber washes up on beaches. Designated a national park (Kuršių Nerijos Nacionalinis Parkas) in 1991, Curonian Spit trails across the Baltic Sea from Lithuania to Russian territory Kaliningrad. Pine forests populated by deer, elk and wild boar cover about 70% of the area and only a fraction is urban; the four main villages Nida, Juodkrantė, Pervalka and Preila are known collectively as ‘Neringa’. Today these fishing villages have embraced tourism, a double-edged sword that yields both their main source of income and their biggest environmental threat.

Until the first decades of the 20th century, most of the spit was German territory. The area used to have a magnetic attraction for German exiles, and continues to draw a large number of German tourists. Today, locals joke that the spit's sand dunes are 'Lithuania's Sahara'.

The low-lying, marsh-dotted eastern side of the Curonian Lagoon (Kursių marios) could be the end of the world. Tourism has scarcely touched this remote, rural and isolated landscape where summer skies offer magnificent views of the spit’s white dunes across the lagoon. In winter ice-fishers sit on the frozen lagoon – up to 12km wide in places – waiting for a smelt to bite.

The gateway into the extraordinary Nemunas Delta (Nemuno Delta), where the Nemunas River ends its 937km journey from its source in neighbouring Belarus, is Šilutė (population 21,000), a sleepy town an hours’ drive south of Klaipėda. 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 travel 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 floodwaters rose to 1.5m in places, although 40cm to 70cm is the norm.

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 a handful of people 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.

The 200-sq-km Žemaitija National Park, a magical landscape of lake and forest, is as mysterious as it is beautiful. It’s easy to see why it spawns fables of devils, ghosts and buried treasure.

The draw here is two-fold. You can swim, boat and bike around at your leisure, as well as pay a visit to one of the country’s newest and most bizarre attractions: a museum to the Cold War, housed in what was once a Soviet nuclear missile base.

The best access point is the small town of Plateliai, on the western shore of the lake of the same name and home to the helpful Žemaitija National Park Visitor Centre.

In beloved Aukštaitija (owk-shtai-ti-ya) National Park it’s clear where Lithuania’s love for nature arose. The natural paradise of deep, whispering forests and blue lakes bewitched this once-pagan country.

Around 70% of the park comprises pine, spruce and deciduous forests, inhabited by elk, deer and wild boar. Its highlight is a labyrinth of 126 lakes, the deepest being Lake Tauragnas (60.5m deep). A footpath leads to the top of 155m Ice Hill (Ledakalnis), from where a panorama of some seven lakes unfolds. Particularly pretty is Lake Baluošas, ensnared by woods and speckled with islands. White-tailed and golden eagles prey here and storks are plentiful. The Trainiškis Wildlife Sanctuary and Ažvinčiai Forest Reserve, home to 150- to 200-year-old pine trees, can only be visited with park guides.

The main jumping-off point for the park is the sleepy town of Ignalina, which has a supermarket, a post office, a hotel-restaurant, and one of two information centres that service that park. Nearby Palūšė, 3km from Ignalina on the banks of Lake Lūsiai (literally ‘Wild Cat Lake’), is home to the park’s headquarters and main information centre.

There are around 100 settlements within the park itself: Šuminai, Salos ll, Vaišnoriškės, Varniškės II and Strazdai are protected ethnographic centres.

The park has several ancient piliakalnis (fortification mounds), such as the Taurapilio mound on the southern shore of Lake Tauragnas, and some quaint wooden architecture, including a fine church and bell tower at Palūsė. Around Lake Lūšiai a wooden sculpture trail depicts Lithuanian folklore.

The reputation of Druskininkai’s healing mineral waters dates back centuries and reached its zenith in the 1800s. During the days of the USSR, the old and ailing sought miracle cures at the famous health resort. Today it attracts well-heeled visitors seeking a quick detox from city life, particularly Lithuanians and tourists from Poland, Belarus and Russia.

Stark Soviet-era buildings remain, but Druskininkai’s 19th-century elegance is being restored: timber houses have carved gables and fronts awash in yellow and pastel green. Parks, fountains and promenades form the town's leafy centre. Most refreshing of all, the town is hugged by forests of tall fir and birch and lies only a few kilometres from Dzūkija National Park.

The Orvydas Garden was the work of stonemason Kazys Orvydas (1905–89) and his oldest son turned Franciscan monk, Vilius (1952–92). The carvings were originally created for the village cemetery in nearby Salantai but were brought here to the Orvydas homestead after then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev turned his wrath on religious objects in the 1960s. The Soviets later blocked access to the house to prevent visitors getting to the persecuted Orvydas family.