Day seventeen

Day seventeen was spent relaxing on the beach on the Curonian Spit, having a relaxing time and soaking up the sun. We did go into Nida at Lunchtime for a visit, its a very small fishing town although most of its income now is derived from tourism. The many old fishing huts now turned into restaurants and bistros. The town does have one modest supermarket for supplies and quite a few souvenir shops for the cruise ship visitors that come across from mainland Latvia.

The spit is 98 km long and is a thin curved sand dune spit that separates the Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea. The Southern end of the spit is in the Russian Territory of Kaliningrad, and its norther end in Lithuania. All of the Spit is a UNESCO world heritage site. In 2000, UNESCO put the Curonian Spit on the World Heritage List under cultural criteria "V" (an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture [...], or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change).

The Curonian Spit is home to the highest moving (drifting) sand dunes in Europe. Their average height is 35 meters, but some attain the height of 60 meters. The largest town on the spit is Nida in Lithuania, its very popular, mostly frequented by Lithuanian and German tourists, and where we have been staying. The northern shoreline of Curonian Spit is the site of the beaches for tourists.

There is a single road that traverses the whole length of the Curonian Spit. The spit is not connected to mainland Lithuania. Car ferries provide a transportation link between Smiltyne, located on the spit, and the port town of Klaipėda.

On the ferry to Klaipėda

Currently there is a demand to tear down the homes on the Curonian Spit. These homes are owned by people who were given permits to build by corrupt local government officials. The demand to tear the homes down is based on the fact that the Spit is a UN World Heritage Site and the only structures that were to be allowed there were fishing shacks based on the history of the Spit.


No selfie today, forgot the phone when we were on the beach, but instead a photo of Tracy getting a white moustache, trying the local brew - white beer, it was like normal larger but with a white tinge. She said it was worse than English beer!