Gateway to Lithuania's Coast

Lithuania's only commercial port, Klaipeda, was actually better known as the German town of Memel for most of its history, a fact reflected in the buildings within its Old Town that survived the Second World War. The River Dane neatly divides the New Town (where the bus and train stations are located) from the Old Town, from which ferries run to the suburb of Smiltyne and the rest of the Curonian Spit.

The highlights of the New Town are the Mazvydas Sculpture Park and the rustic post office, whose carillon you may mistake for church bells, as I did. Interestingly, the compact Old Town, has no churches itself, as all were damaged in the Second World War and razed under Soviet rule.

The old town appropriately boasts quite a few other old buildings, many with German fachwerk (exposed wood) facades, and amply repays a stroll. The highlight is Theater Square-with a fountain honoring the local poet Simon Dach at its center. The square takes its name from the Drama Theater, from whose balcony Hitler announced the area's annexation in March 1939. This and the rest of the town's history is memorialized in the nearby History Museum of Lithuania Minor.

Be sure to take the nearby Old Castle ferry across to Smiltyne, home to the enjoyable Curonian Spit National Park Museum, an open-air Ethnographic Museum, and a Maritime Museum and Aquarium (in the historic Kopgalis Fortress) with a child-pleasing dolphinarium attached. Nearby is over a mile of beaches, much beloved by picnicking locals and tourists alike.

You may wish, as I did, to use Klaipeda as a base to see the Curonian Spit and the sights in the resort town of Palanga (approximately 45 minutes away by bus). Each boasts ample accommodation options for any price range and constitutes a destination in its own right.

Quick Tips:

Be sure to pick up a copy of Kaunas/Klaipeda In Your Pocket for reviews and listings of local restaurants, music venues, hotels, attractions, maps, and inter-city travel timetables. It is more exhaustive and up-to-date than the general guidebooks I used. It also contains some listings for the nearby resort of Palanga and the Curonian Spit. The tourist office in the Old Town is fairly helpful.

Best Way To Get Around:

The historic areas of Klaipeda are extremely compact and best explored on foot. Ferries run fairly regularly (though not always on schedule) to the Curonian Spit. There are decent scheduled bus connections to the rest of Lithuania. To visit Palanga, take a mini-bus from the stand at the bus station. These leave as soon as they fill up-in the summer you shouldn't have to wait more than 15 minutes to depart.

Having had the pleasure of staying at Litinterp’s Vilnius guesthouse, I had a general sense of what to expect at the Klaipeda version, although I was struck by the almost exact reconstruction of the Vilnius room’s pine furniture and décor. Comfortable as their rooms are—indeed, they’d recently been refurbished—it is located in a somewhat dead area of Klaipeda that has little to recommend it besides the guesthouse itself. It’s not unsafe, but it’s not prepossessing either. The best parts of Litinterp’s guesthouse lie in its location with respect to transportation and its level of service.

While small, Klaipeda is a somewhat spread-out city—the major sights, city center, ferry port to the Curonian Spit, and bus and train stations are all in an arc, of sorts, that fans across the Danes River. Consequently, any accommodation is either extremely convenient to one of the places and not the others, or somewhat convenient to all of them. Litinterp falls into the latter category—it’s about 10 minutes to all these locations, save the bus and train stations, which are more like 15 minutes away. As a result, it’s a good place to stay if you plan to make Klaipeda a base, as I did. Their willingness to double-check often-confusing Lithuanian bus and train timetables is particularly helpful.

Litinterp, which, as its name indicates, began life as an interpretation company before branching into accommodation and rental cars, boasts of providing "The Ultimate Service," and my experience was that it consistently did. The concierge service they provided was better than at any hotel I’ve stayed at. I arrived earlier than my original stated arrival time, but they nevertheless immediately got my room ready—before 10 in the morning! Likewise, although they only generally serve breakfast (which they leave in wicker basket outside your door) at certain hours, they happily accommodated me when I needed it sooner because of an early train. Needless to say, they were equally accommodating regarding its contents. I simply can’t imagine staying anywhere else!

As I neglected to take pictures of Litinterp, I hope you'll enjoy these pictures of Klaipeda.

Although I found it (with some difficulty) tucked in a nondescript building just beyond Klaipeda's old town, Kurpiai is rather more exciting within. Somehow, the high-ceilinged dark country tavern meets coffeehouse music venue, with a few mirrors thrown in for good measure (or at least to make it look larger), is actually quite charming. As was my server, who immediately lit me a candle stuck in a wine bottle and left me to puzzle my way through the rather extensive trilingual menu.

Just back from the bus station, where I’d returned after visiting the Hill of the Crosses and bought my ticket to Riga, I looked forward to spending my last litas honoring this wonderful country’s cuisine. My first choice was kepta duona, a traditional and delicious snack made of crunchy fried bread rubbed in garlic, and in this case, covered in local cheese. This went well with my glass of midus (a stronger and more flavorful variant on mead), and I ordered zirniai su spirgais(split peas with pork), another favorite Lithuanian companion to imbibing.

I noticed that the restaurant, and even more so the bar, had begun to fill up, and I recalled the Lonely Planet guide’s description of the place as the best bar in Lithuania and a "heaving music venue." With some difficulty, I managed to order a local fish filet, which was pleasantly tender and accompanied by an obscenely large side dish of potatoes. By the time I had finished, pleasantly sated for the long bus ride the next day, the guidebook’s description had been borne out in full, with a local band playing to an enthusiastic audience. Consequently, I’d advise you to seek out this restaurant should you visit Klaipeda, but to do so well before 8pm in order to get a seat. If you arrive anytime close to 9pm, when the music begins, you’ll be turned away!

I didn't take any pictures inside so I hope you'll enjoy these that I took earlier in the day at the Hill of the Crosses

After a long, but enjoyable day hiking, birdwatching, and generally getting both literally and figuratively lost on Lithuania’s delightful Curonian Spit, I was inclined to seek out some (dare I say it) comfort food. For all the richness, in every sense of the word, of Lithuania’s cuisine, this dictated scouring Klaipeda’s streets (my guidebooks having been distinctly unhelpful) for a purveyor of pizza, leading me to this apparently much-beloved establishment at the city’s busiest intersection…

Before surrendering all pretenses of being an adventurous, or independent traveler, I should add that my in my previous experience, Lithuanian pizza (or rather, piča) is generally unlike what you’ve likely sampled in Italy (or Little Italy for that matter.) Indeed, it’s one of Lithuania’s most popular dishes, often offered at restaurants that otherwise strictly serve only Lithuanian selections. Thus, one could say that piča is as traditionally Lithuanian as tempura is Japanese. It features traditional Lithuanian cheeses rather than mozzarella, and tends (like everything else in all three Baltic states) to be topped with a sprinkling of dill. It’s generally served with ketchup and mayonnaise, which give a new meaning to the concepts of "topping" and "pizza sauce."

My previous experience with this dubious delight could rather more accurately be described as discomfort food, given the speed with which it propelled me in search of a water closet. Consequently, I entered Bambola with some trepidation, but was relieved to find that despite Klaipeda’s rather liminal position on the tourist map, they served pizza in forms familiar to Lithuanian and foreign palates alike. The décor, which appeared to have been entirely supplied by the Coca-Cola Company from American factory seconds, judging by the number of times both its logo and English-language slogan appeared, I’ll leave it to you to decide whether this is a slice of home or simply that corporations’ eponymous brand of colonialism.

In any case, the friendliness of the English-speaking service I received was a matter of fact rather than opinion, my server took the trouble of explaining, as I have above, the distinction between piča and suggested a meat and mozzarella covered concoction that would be suitable both to my palate and my rather loudly growling stomach. She cautioned against my ordering lasagna as well – my interest having been piqued by a couple of locals who were clearly enjoying Bambola’s traditionally Italian (or perhaps American?) take on this delicacy. Instead, I selected a fresh though entirely unremarkable salad composed of iceberg lettuce, julienned carrots, and tomatoes. I resisted the advertisements around me and washed it down with a Coca-Cola logo-emblazoned glass of orange juice, which combined for a rather stomach settling effect. The pizza itself was quite solid, nothing exceptional by non-Lithuanian standards, but certainly the filling, metaphorical slice of comfort food that I desired. If you’re looking for the same thing, for a reasonable price, I recommend that you also go to Bambola. They don’t take reservations but it’s quite popular so arrive early to avoid disappointment.

While the History Museum of Lithuania Minor offers interesting exhibitions on the cultural and social history of Klaipeda, it provides relatively little insight on the city’s political history and almost no information of any sort in English. I hope that this brief history will enhance both your understanding and enjoyment of Lithuania’s third largest city and only commercial port.

On the bank of the Danes River stands a large stone monument, sculpted by A. Sakalauskas, inscribed with a quotation by the local writer Ieva Simonaityte, "We are one nation, one land, one Lithuania." The sculpture itself, whose larger gray column represents Lithuania Minor and whose smaller red Doric column represents Lithuania major, hints that history has told a different story. With its deliberately jagged edge, representing the loss felt by Lithuanians because of Russian sovereignty over what is now the Kaliningrad Oblast, it indicates that this thinking remains somewhat wishful.

Klaipeda owes its name to members of the Curonian tribe, among the ancestors of today’s Lithuanians, in whose language the words klaip and eda mean "bread" and "eat" respectively. While they established a fishing village in the general vicinity of today’s city around the first century AD, they rarely had the opportunity to consume their bread in peace. Various invaders, in particular the Vikings and later the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Knights, attacked the region with regularity. The latter succeeded in taking the settlement, and in 1252, erected a brick fortress they named Memelburg (Memel Castle) after the German name for the Nemunas River, which runs into the Curonian Lagoon 50km south, near Nida on the Curonian Spit.

In 1258 the city, which came to be known as Memel, was given municipal rights, and in 1328, the Livonian Order transferred control of the city to its counterpart in Prussia. Despite frequent attempts to take the city, first by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and then by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the town remained firmly in the hands of the Teutonic Knights, even after their otherwise decisive defeat at the Battle of Zalgiris (Gruenwald) in present-day Poland in 1410. After the Order’s abandonment of its religious status in 1525, Memel became the northernmost town of the Duchy of Prussia, which it would remain until 1918.

As a member of the Hanseatic League and a key strategic fortress, Memel was often attacked by foreign powers; however, its sturdy fortress fell into non-Prussian hands on only two occasions – to the Swedes in 1628-1635 and the Russians in 1757-62. The thriving trading city that developed was less fortunate – burning to the ground in 1540, badly damaged again in 1678, and stricken with famine and plague between 1709 and 1711. Nonetheless, it developed strong trading ties with Britain and was settled by both Scottish and English merchants, who gave it something of a multicultural character. When King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia fled French occupation of Berlin in 1807, he made Memel his temporary capital for a single year.

With the establishment of the Second Reich in 1871, the Prussian King Wilhelm I became Kaiser (Emperor) of Germany as well, and on the urging of his Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, commenced a Germanization campaign that rankled with Lithuanians. After Germany’s defeat in the First World War, the city and surrounding region were placed under international jurisdiction (akin to the status afforded the Free City of Danzig/Gdansk) with day-to-day administration to be conducted by the French. Embittered by the awarding of Vilnius (Wilno) to Poland, the fledgling Lithuanian Republic organized demonstrations by the local Lithuanian population, and amid international dithering, annexed the city in 1923, giving the new country a working port.

Although the international community accepted the transfer as compensation for the loss of Vilnius, this Germans regarded the action as yet another entry on the list of territorial grievances they had with their victorious enemies in the First World War. Adolf Hitler was able to play upon this sentiment, and on March 23, 1939, unilaterally announced the annexation of the territory while the international community again stood by. It was Nazi Germany’s last territorial annexation before it attacked Poland in September of the same year.

The Soviet Army seized Klaipeda in 1945 and annexed it to the rest of Lithuania, which it had recently captured from Nazi Germany. During the war, much of the city was destroyed, accounting for the Soviet character of its architecture outside the small (and largely reconstructed) Old Town. The Soviets expelled the German population and deported many members of the Lithuanian population to Siberia. At the same time, Russians were settled in Klaipeda, which became a major shipbuilding and fishing center, and its prewar population more than quadrupled to 200,000. By the time Lithuania regained its independence, Klaipeda had become the fourth largest port in the entire Soviet Union as a result of its status as the country’s only ice-free port.

Unlike Kaunas and Siauliai, which suffered significant economic losses after the end of Soviet control, Klaipeda has risen to become the country’s second most important business center as a result of its port and consequently has begun to recapture some of its old cosmopolitan flavor.