Curonian Spit

The ferry crosses the Curonian Lagoon. The boat trip from Klaipeda to Smiltynė on the Curonian Spit takes only a few minutes.

The Curonian Spit is a 98 kms long, thin, curved sand-dune spit that separates the Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea. Its southern part lies within Kaliningrad Oblast (Russia) and its northern in Lithuania. It stretches from the Sambia Peninsula on the south to its northern tip next Klaipėda.

The spit was originally covered with forest. The first clearings took place as early as the time of the Teutonic Order. Only clear-cutting during the Nordic War (1674-1679) and the Russian period allowed unvegetated and higher dunes to emerge. So huge shifting sand dunes buried the existing villages again and again. It was not until the second half of the 19th century that the dunes got stabilized by planting.