The Moscow to Munich Meander - Part III:

Klaipėda and The Curonian Spit

(not to be confused with the Slovenian town of Ptuj)

Monday, August 20, 2012

After a beautiful morning in Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, I boarded a bus and traveled for several hours across the country to the city of Klaipėda on the Baltic coast.


View Munich-Klaipeda in a larger map


I was picked up at the bus station by my Lithuanian friend Leonid. I first met Leonid and Kate when I was in Mysore, India in 2011. Kate offered to take my picture for me and we spent the next few hours touring an old palace and riding elephants.

They said that if I was ever in Lithuania I should come and visit. So I did!




Now they have a young son, Liov. We drove to their home and had some borscht for lunch.

We then went for a little walk in the park near their home. Though Leonid and Kate are Lithuanians they are ethnically Russian and that's the language they speak at home. Leonid works at sea as an officer on a scientific research wessel and Kate is a hairdresser. They have a pretty neighborhood.




We picked up Kate from the salon and then went to the Klaipėda waterfront. Liov was happy...





I became a bridge troll...

Klaipėda was once a Germanic city controlled by the Teutonic Knights then later by Prussia, which became part of the German Empire, then after WWII it became part of the Soviet Republic of Lithuania. There is still a heavy German influence in the city.







After seeing a bit of the old town, it started raining and so we went for dinner at a Lithuanian restaurant.

Lithuanian food is best known for their huge potato dumplings, nicknamed "zeppelins." Here I got two very different kinds of zeppelins and a glass of kefir, a popular beverage made from fermented milk. It's a bit like carbonated buttermilk but thicker. It was a very tasty dinner!





 So what is the Curonian Spit? You see that narrow neck of land behind me? It stretches nearly 100km along the Lithuanian and Kaliningrad coastline creating the Curionian Lagoon in the area in between. More on that a little bit later...




The rain storm created some cool clouds over the modern apartment buildings opposite Leonid & Kate's apartment...



That night we watched Garfield 2.


The next day Leonid, Liov, and I took a morning ferry ride across the Curonian Lagoon to the Curonian Spit.

The ferry ride:




Scattered along the waterfront is a collection of exhibits and museums. Here I am with a WWII underwater mine:




A recreated Curonian fishing village:




Pretty sure that's a male mannequin dressed in traditional Curionian women's clothes. Either that or they had some pretty interesting "traditions"...






I then visited the Lithuanian Marine Museum. The site used to be an old naval base but has since been converted to a very attractive museum. In the bunkers on the side there are exhibits on Lithuanian naval and sea-going history. The complex in the center houses an oceanarium with mostly local marine wildlife. There were seals, a lot of interesting fish including the giant beluga sturgeon (its eggs famous as Russian caviar). There were also penguins, tropical fish and jellyfish, and a gigantic Steller's sea lion. Taking photos cost extra and so you'll just have to use your imagination...





Leonid and Liov went back to Klaipėda and I boarded a bus that took me south through the forests along the spine of the spit to the town of Nida, not far from the border of the Russian enclave Kaliningrad...


View Curonian Spit in a larger map


The weather was not great. It was drizzly and cool, but it actually created an appropriately eerie atmosphere. Nida is mostly a holiday town for Lithuanians and Germans, I ventured into the forest to cross the spit to the Baltic side...





The signs declared this a nude beach...




I crossed back through the forest...



...and hiked around exploring a bit more. There were plaques along the trails telling about the wildlife and history of the area. Moss carpeted the sides of the trail...




I came back over to the lagoon side of the spit and saw the largest moving sand dunes in Europe...

In the distance is Kaliningrad, Russia. These are the dunes... 

I had a nice nap on my bus ride back to the ferry terminal and I crossed back to Klaipėda. That evening we went out for fast food Lithuanian style. Bureks! Fried dough with a tasty meat filling...

It was so interesting to talk to Leonid and Kate, who are just a couple years younger than I, about what it was like to grow up in the Soviet Union and the years just after independence.

I found it amusing as we drove around town with Liov in the backseat we would listen to old Russian children's musicals that Leonid and Kate listened to when they were children. It reminded me of how my American and Western European friends often listen to the Disney musicals that they grew up with, when driving with their children.

We stopped at a large grocery store for Kate to do some shopping, meanwhile Leonid and I went into the bar (A Wal-Mart in America might have a McDonald's, in Europe they have bars). It was my first chance to try one of the most popular soft drinks in Eastern Europe: Kvass....

This tasty drink is made from fermented rye bread and yeast. It is like cola in that there are many different types of Kvass, some sweeter some more robust. It tasted especially good from the tap (like A&W Rootbeer!) and thereafter I ordered it every chance I got all the way to Moscow.

The next day I just had few more hours in Lithuania. I said goodbye to Kate as we dropped her off at the salon and then Leonid and Liov and I drove to a nearby forest and went hunting for mushrooms!

Mushroom hunting is a national pastime here and every Lithuanian knows which mushrooms are good to eat and which are not. Here! We found one!



We also found a few wild raspberries and blackberries to munch on along the way.

Had to watch out for the ponds and sinkholes...

And the huge spiders, which were everywhere...

But in the end we found a few good 'shrooms....

It was time for me to leave. I had a great time with Leonid, Kate, and Liov and it was fun to see what daily life in Lithuania is like.

For me it was on to another bus off to another country!

The code of conduct on the buses in Lithuania is a little bit different than at home:

• No shooting arrows out of your mouth into people's heads.
• Please hold the guide rails for safety.
• No using metal-detector paddles around goblets.
• No sexy corsets.
• No lightsabers with tassles.
• No confetti.

...