The Curonian Spit (Klaipeda and Nida, Lithuania)

Aren't sand dunes just big piles of sand? I think they are...But they're more special than they seem.


Lithuania is a small and beautiful country, but there's little a tourist can see and do in Klaipeda itself (think of it as a gateway for cruisers to the rest of Lithuania). After taking a quick ferry to The Curonian Spit, a neighboring island and national park, we boarded a bus to spend the day in Nida, one of the island's more popular resort towns. Despite being well into the middle of our trip, I knocked out on the bus, a rarity that can only be attributed to a late case of jet lag. Normally, I'd be grateful for a little extra sleep, but I woke up awfully groggy and confused. We all were.

The bus driver was kind enough to signal to us that we had arrived to Nida when we did; these buses go up and down the entire island and make multiple stops with little announcements. At the bus station, we felt very out of place without the usual tourist kiosks and English signs. Looking around, it seemed as if we were in a small, rural Midwestern town...In the 1980's...And somehow the Jersey shore had found its way to the middle of America.

Nida was simply a slow-moving beach town for family summer vacations. The shore was dotted with sailboats, children played on swing sets, and bungalows of all colors lined the streets. The cruiser bicycles made the town very Cape May-esque. Besides the single hipster coffee shop, everything looked very antiquated - but in a good way, like you're looking at a vintage, sepia tinted photo of a Chevy pickup truck in the middle of an abandoned gas station. I think the little, white fan in the bare tourism office did it to me.

Once we shook ourselves from the initial shock and confusion, we wandered by foot into the national park.

Have you ever seen a forest and a beach coexist so closely? The scenery of fields of wild grasses, tall larch trees, and expansive dunes, all meshed together at once, was mesmerizing. In grade school, you learn about different natural environments, like the plains, "temperate deciduous forests", deserts. Never did I bother to imagine finding them in a single place.

We wandered through these three elements of the earth, making our way up a wooden staircase to the top of the dunes. There, the narrative of slow-paced, summer days and Americana came to life. Families picnicked while playing Frisbee, kids played tag in the sand. How idyllic, huh?

I promise I don't try to paint everything in life as romantically as some of these travel blogposts may suggest. Perhaps that's the beauty of being able to stop and enjoy the little things in life when I swap my phone for a camera - you get to see life through rose tinted lenses for a bit.

  

Sanddorn berries - in Germany, you can buy the best Sanddorn-berry scented lotion!

A mini David, with his stone and slingshot

They have outdoor exercising equipment next to the playgrounds - kids can swing while their parents workout...Or they can work out and the parents can swing! I shadowed a dietitian in January who encouraged his patients to "go to the gym and play and have fun", forgoing the social discomfort and pressures that gyms often involve. I think Lithuania's doing a pretty cool thing. 

(Note: the equipment are more than just the giant parallel bars in NYC parks or LA beaches.)

Now back to Klaipeda:

Make fun of me all you want, but this simple salad may have been one of the best meals I ate this trip.

She's so kind!

And because I struggle to pick one, you get two:

I like getting a view of life through videos, too - look out for some clips of Nida and Klaipeda: