The Curonian Spit

First published May 12, 2005

After the emotional visit to the Hill of Crosses, we went to a little piece of Paradise : the Curonian Spit.

The Curonian Spit stretches from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad to the Lithuanian coast, and offers a remarkable mixture of dunes, pine trees and birches.
The peninsula is 100 kilometres long and Nida, a quiet village on the Russian border is surrounded by dunes.
To the left is a lagoon, to the right the open Baltic Sea.
It is easy to get lost in these moving dunes, and one part is even called The Valley of Death because French-Prussian prisoners of war were guarded there.

In the evening Regita rented us a wooden bungalow, but since she didn't know which houe it was, we had to try all the doors of about 50 bungalows...luckily we found the right one after about 15 minutes. The only thing we didn't find was : water or electricity ...back to the dark ages !