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| The arse end of nowhere |
With stage three man flu
developing our trip to the Baltic Sea was a good tonic to my illness and we
spent a few days enjoying the fresh sea air and breath taking walks along the Curoniun
Spit. The Curoniun Spit is a 98 km long
sand dune peninsula which dates back to prehistoric times and is now covered
almost entirely in pine forest. Today,
Lithuania shares the spit with the Russian-controlled Kaliningrad Region (I
never knew Russia still had a region outside of its main borders in
Europe). Now a UNESCO site it is a
constant battle to preserve the spit as it is threatened by the natural forces
of wind and waves, as well as tourism. Numerous conservation projects are currently
active and there are now established walks and cycle paths through the dunes
that are closely monitored to ensure tourists are not entering the protected
areas. We stayed in the village of Nida,
the metropolis of the spit home to around 1500 residents although a lot of these
are only around in the summer tourist season.
We therefore entered a ghost town with very little open in the village
but still managing to catch the last of the autumnal weather and forests.
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| The village of Juodkrantė |
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| The Witches Trail |
Although based in Nida we caught
the bus on our first morning up to the town of Juodkrantė on a quest to find the wild elk that roam the national park.
Described as being in the slow lane even in the summer season Juodkrantė appeared
to have pulled over on to the hard shoulder and hibernated in the winter
months. Seeing around 8 people all day and
with no café open in the whole town lunch was spent on a bench with a veritable feast consisting of a banana and half a Lion bar but at least there was a coffee machine outside the shop to warm us up. We headed off for a walk through the forests
on Witches’ Hill where a collection of devils, witches and other fantastical
and grotesque wooden carvings from Lithuanian folklore lurk along a trail. After a few hours walking in the deserted pine
forest with no joy on my hunt we stumbled upon the beach on the far side of the
spit. Coming from the north of England
most of my beach time is spent on wild dunes in the cold but here we really had
discovered the definition of being in the arse end of nowhere. Looking along the desolate dunes onto the
Baltic Sea with a low, black sky seemingly encasing us we felt like we were at
the ends of the earth. We walked back
through the forest to the lagoon side of the spit to catch the bus home and just
when I though my search for an elk had ended in disappointment we walked past a
garden with a giant elk sat watching us whilst chomping on the grass. Whether this counts or not as wild is open
for discussion but as it was undoubtedly an elk we caught the bus back to Nida
happy that we had fulfilled our quest.
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| The foot path - or lack of |
The weather was living up to it's reputation but despite the Baltic temperatures, wind and rain we explored the sand dunes around Nida the
following day. At the top of the 52
metre sand dune west of the town we were able to look out across the split and
take in the forest, sand dunes and the water on either side of the spit. It was an incredible panoramic with the lack
of any human interference making the baron wilderness seem even more
imposing. We
continued our walk on a path that was supposedly impossible to get lost on but we
somehow ended up in the middle of the wilderness (thanks tourist information) with
a maze of different ‘paths’ going in all directions. Eventually we found our way back to the town and
sheltering from the elements enjoyed the local delicacy – raw salted herring
and potatoes – before catching the evening bus back to Klaipeda on the main
land. Driving in to the city we passed
the Russian Embassy where hundreds of bouquets of flowers, candles and messages of condolence had been lain outside of the gates in remembrance of the victims of the plane
crash over Egypt. Klaipeda was our final
stop in Lithuania before heading north and I left feeling that it had been one
of my favourite nations we had visited on our trip through Europe, with its quirky
culture and eclectic scenery making it one of Europe’s best known secrets.
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Looking across towards Russia
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