🇱🇹 Klaipėda

After seeing the amazing Hill of Crosses, we found a lovely park next to a circular lake where we could spend the night. The lake was surrounded by all kinds of swings, which made Kathrin incredibly happy. She always lights up and runs towards any swing we find, and this was her heaven (and mine, too!).

We had a perfectly quiet night and a fun morning. Once again, Lithuania proved that it does one thing exceptionally well: public parks!

Now we had a tough choice to make: visit the Curonian Spit or not?

Pros: lovely nature and, very likely, a calm and relaxing day.
Cons: it requires a ferry ride, we had heard that parking is extremely complicated, especially with larger vehicles, wild camping isn’t permitted, and the only campsite charges an arm and a leg for basically no services.

After checking the map, we decided to skip the Curonian Spit in favour of Klaipėda.

The city has a lovely old town, and we are always fans of places with rivers and canals running through them. We wandered the streets and soaked up the vibes while sipping an inexpensive cup of coffee. It’s a busy city, but at the same time it has a certain calmness, which we liked. The harbour, however, seemed mostly industrial and nothing to get excited about.

Klaipėda has one attraction that we believe to be absolutely unique in the world: a (live) cat which has it’s own Google Maps entry including reviews: the Old Town Cat.

Klaipėda is certainly worth a visit if you’re in the area, but a couple of hours felt like enough. So once we had got our dose of coffee and city vibes, we moved on. The goal: to find a lovely spot for the night, preferably with beach access.

This proved a little more complicated than expected, as the entire stretch north of Klaipėda close to the beach is full of (closed) campsites, holiday homes and resorts, or thick woods. Wild camping isn’t permitted because of the nature reserves.

Eventually, we found a campsite situated literally in the middle of a new housing estate. Officially they were open; unofficially the season was over, and they were busy renewing all kinds of pipework. We agreed on a fair price and parked on a patch of grass. All we needed was a safe and quiet place to sleep anyway.

Once Wilma was parked, we immediately headed to the beach, just a 10-minute walk away, and enjoyed a beautiful sunset, disturbed only by the odd relentless mosquito chasing me for blood.