Note: Sorry for the lack of posts during the last month. I’ve been writing, but the internet in China was way too slow for any uploads. This means that for the next couple of weeks there may be a bit of blog overload while I try to catch up!
Klaipeda is a small town, on the very west coast of Lithuania on the Baltic coast. We had headed here as we wanted to do a day trip on the Curonian spit – a small strip of land just off the coast of Klaipeda, that is a UNESCO world heritage site, as it has Europe’s highest drifting sand dunes, with some hitting 60 metres. It is around 60 miles long in total, however about half of this belongs to Kaliningrad which is controlled by Russia, and therefore cannot be entered without a specific visa. The other 30 miles of it, however, belong to Lithuania, so we planned to explore this part the next day.
As we hoped to cycle round the island, we arrived a day early, to plan our trip, organise our bike rental and book ourselves tickets on the ferry over. We are also glad we hadn’t planned to visit on the first day, as it turned out to be a dull and drizzly day, whereas the rest of the week had been bright sunshine. We spent the first morning organising our cycle trip, and spent the afternoon wandering around the town. Klaipeda is famous for its sculptures, having more than 200 in the town, so we went sculpture spotting.
Matt’s favourite sculpture. Not sure why.
The next day we took the first ferry of the day across to the Spit. This took about 15 minutes and took us from Klaipeda to the top of the island. We then took a bus down to the other side to a lovely little fishing village call Nida, a few kilometres from the Kaliningrad border. There we rented a bike from a local man, who when we explained that we wanted to ride the bikes one way and leave it there, he said no problem just lock them up in Juodkrante, which was the town on the other side of the island, where we would catch the bus back to the ferry. We were confused about what to do with the key, but he said don’t worry, just stick that under the tire… Very safe!
After getting our bikes, having shown no ID and given no deposit (free bike!), we cycled to the very furthest tip of the Lithuanian boundary, to the biggest sand dune on the island. We climbed up and the view from the top was amazing. We were told not to wander off the path around the sand dune for two reasons: 1. If people walk onto the sand dune constantly, it will disturb the sand as it is a moving dune and will significantly shrink, and 2. There is no obvious border between the Lithuanian side of the island and the Russian side… if you end up in the Russian side without a visa you could be in a lot of trouble. So we explored the dune… diligently sticking to the paths!
From the top of the biggest dune… hard to show how huge it is up there!
Then we cycled back into Nida for some lunch. Nida is popular for it’s smoked fish, which is caught just off the coast of the island, and then is smoked in the BBQ’d for at least 12 hours. Matt asked the lady to point to the one she liked the most, she didn’t really understand him, but he ended up with what we think was mackerel (maybe) and he enjoyed it so much he went back for a second! 
Lunch with a view
We then set off on our 20 mile cycle, trying to follow the not-very-well-defined cycle path. We started by cycling along the waterfront, which was very beautiful and a lovely easy ride. We could see the coast of Klaipeda right in the distance, and the views of the peaceful water were just fantastic. 
All the houses on the island looked like this.. gorgeous!
We then cycled through the middle of the island that was full of trees and forestry, which was quite a hard bit of cycling. At some points we weren’t sure if we were still following the cycle path, as it was supposed to be an easy cycle – Matt had been told he definitly didn’t need a mountain bike and half way through he realised he definitely did need one – but getting lost is all part of the fun!
These trees were on the coast, facing out to sea, where the strong winds have made them grow wonky
After a few hours of cycling, we popped out on the other side of the island, and spotted the beach… we cycled as fast as we could and went for a paddle to cool ourselves down and then sat relaxing in the sand for a while.
Our very own beach
In the excitement of discovering our own secluded beach, we had sort of forgotten about time, and when we looked at our watch we realised there was only 45 minutes until the last bus to the ferry and we still had a couple of kilometres to cycle. So we hopped on our bikes and did a speedy ride back to the bus…. until we saw a sign for the bird watching platform, and decided we couldn’t miss it, so we took a quick detour.
And we were sooo glad we did! There were literally hundreds of cormorants and herons all over the top of the trees, sitting in their nests and flying above us. It was amazing and it’s hard to show in photos quite how many birds there were. It’s also hard to describe the smell. With all those nests in one place, it stank. Bad. 
Close up of the nests
Hundreds of birds nests in the trees
We were then running really late, so we cycled the last km or so at full pelt, and made it just in time to lock up our bikes and run straight onto the bus, out of breath and tired out! We took the bus back to the ferry, the ferry back to Klaipeda, and headed back to the hostel and collapsed.
Cute statue at the pier after we got back from the Spit. It was at least 8pm at this point and the sun was still shining!
Matt and Rosie's Travel Diary 