The hook
A thread of sand barely a few kilometres wide running a hundred kilometres down the Baltic, with some of the highest drifting dunes in Europe on one side and a calm lagoon on the other.
01Why it's worth it
The Curonian Spit is a long, improbably narrow sandbar separating a shallow lagoon from the open Baltic, shared at its far end with Russia's Kaliningrad. Its great dunes once "walked," burying whole villages in sand, until people planted pine forests to pin them down, and the result is a strange, fragile landscape of towering pale dunes, dark pine, quiet beaches, and old fishing settlements. The prettiest is Nida, a village of blue-and-brown timber cottages where Thomas Mann kept a summer house, looking out over the lagoon. You can climb the great Parnidis dune, cycle the forest paths the length of the spit, and swim off empty Baltic sand. It is peaceful, elemental, and easy to reach by a short ferry from Klaipėda.
02How to experience it
Take the ferry from Klaipėda and rent a bike to ride between the villages and up to the big dunes; climb Parnidis dune near Nida for the view over sand and lagoon. Swim off the Baltic side and see Mann's cottage. Stay over to have it after the day-trippers leave.