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There's a distinctly German flavour to Klaipėda (klai-pey-da). Lithuania's third-largest city, formerly known as Memel, was part of the Prussian Kingdom until the region wrestled to autonomy in 1923. Buildings in the compact, cobblestoned Old Town are constructed in the German fachwerk style – that is, with distinctive half-timbered facades. Beyond the orderly historic centre, the modern city sprawls into an industrial forest of cranes and shipyards, sliced in two by the Danė River as it meanders into the Baltic Sea.
Most people only catch a glimpse of Klaipėda as they rush headlong for the ferry to Curonian Spit, the birch-lined tendril of land across the lagoon. But spend a few hours – or even better, a day – and you’ll be rewarded by a town as rich in historic architecture as sculptures and street art, not to mention a bevy of bars in which to sip beers by the water.
These are our favorite local haunts, touristy spots, and hidden gems throughout Klaipėda.
Museum
The castle museum is spread across four exhibition spaces around Klaipėda's castle – two of these are located in atmospherically lit tunnels and deal with the history of the castle and of Klaipėda as a port city; another features changing exhibitions of contemporary art. The highlight, however, is the Museum 39/45 (separately priced; adult/child €1.74/0.87), a high-tech depiction of WWII and its impact on the city.
Museum
This gallery is renowned for the bold works by the Prussian-born expressionist painter Pranas Domšaitis (1880–1965), who spent his last years in South Africa, plus former Lithuanian artists-in-exile. Besides a wealth of Lithuanian pastoral landscapes, there are some wonderful miniatures upstairs, as well as another permanent exhibition on ornate knobs.
Museum
If you want to know what makes things tick, look no further than this niche museum that explores human measurement of time, from the earliest sundials to the latest quartz-powered Swiss watch, touching on water clocks, candle clocks and other ways of measuring time. Upstairs, the exhibition looks at the evolution of design and form in clocks over the past four centuries. The sundial garden can be worth the price of admission, on sunny days.
Brewery
Klaipėda is home to the country’s second-oldest brewery, where its biggest beer, Švyturys, has been brewed since 1784. Book through the tourist office or ask directly at the bar for tours of the brewery that include tastings of three or four beers (1½ to two hours, from €10 per person). Tour times are usually between 10am and 4pm from Monday to Friday, but they vary by demand.
Museum
This creaky-floored little museum traces the origins of ‘Lithuania Minor’ (Kleinlitauen), as this coastal region was known during its several centuries as part of East Prussia. It exhibits Prussian maps, coins and artefacts of the Teutonic Order. Most attractive are the wooden furnishings, displays of folk art and traditional weaving machines.
Sculpture
Established on the site of the main cemetery of the old Prussian city of Memel (Klaipėda in a former incarnation), in 1977, this L-shaped park became an outdoor sculpture gallery. It's dotted with more than 100 sculptures by 67 Lithuanian artists, erected between 1977 and 1991. Also here is the WWII memorial to the Soviet fallen.
Statue
This poignant statue of a mother with a headscarf, a suitcase in one hand, and the hand of a small boy clutching a teddy bear in the other, stand outside the train station. It was given by Germany to Klaipėda to remember Germans who said goodbye to their homeland after the city became part of Lithuania in 1923.
Sculpture
If strolling near the cruise ship pier, keep an eye out for this grotesque hooded figure, clambering out of the water whilst clutching a lamp. Local legend goes that this apparition appeared in 1595 to one of the Klaipėda Castle guards to warn about the impending shortage of grain and timber in the city.
Museum
This museum displays ornate forged-iron works such as ornate 19th-century stove doors and elaborate crosses salvaged from the town’s former cemetery (Martynas Mažvydas Sculpture Park) when it was demolished in 1972. Note the ceramic plaques at the heart of the crosses.