Palanga

Palanga is the principal seaside resort on Lithuania is Baltic coast, a town whose identity is shaped by three things in roughly equal measure: a long sandy beach backed by dunes, the extensive Birutes park with its botanical garden, and the famous Amber Museum housed in the former Tiškevičius Palace. In summer the town fills with visitors from across the Baltic region and beyond, but even in the quieter months of May or September the beach retains a quality of open sky and pine-scented air that is genuinely restorative.

The beach runs for roughly twenty kilometres along the Baltic, backed by a line of dunes planted with marram grass to prevent erosion. The water is shallow for some distance from shore, making it safe for swimming, and the horizon is open and wide, often fringed by grey cloud that is characteristic of this coast rather than a sign of poor weather. A Victorian-era pier extends eight hundred metres into the sea, one of the longest in the Baltic, and walking its length at sunset is a well-established local ritual. Birutes park behind the beach covers around one hundred and sixty hectares and contains several kilometres of walking paths through woodland, around a small lake, and past the amber museum is converted palace, which holds one of the largest collections of Baltic amber in the world, with pieces including insects and small vertebrates trapped inside stones as much as fifty million years old.

Palanga grew into a resort in the late 19th century under the Tiškevičius family, who built the palace and formal gardens and established it as the fashionable seaside destination for the Baltic German aristocracy and Lithuanian elite. The town is main street, Kretingos gatve, still carries the commercial character of that era, with a mix of early 20th-century shopfronts and apartment buildings that survived the fires and wars of the 20th century largely intact. A fire in 1917 destroyed much of the original resort infrastructure, and the rebuilding that followed gave the town its current early 20th-century character. The amber museum, nationalised in 1944, reopened after independence and is now one of the most visited museums in Lithuania.

The town also serves as a base for exploring the surrounding region, including the nearby manorial estate at Kretinga and the quiet fishing harbour of Klaipeda, Lithuania is only major port, a twenty-minute drive south along the coast road. The region is one of the most biologically diverse in Lithuania, with coastal meadows, marshland and mixed forest supporting populations of white storks, black grouse and several species of orchid that attract botanists from across Europe.

The longest sandy beach on Lithuania is Baltic coast, with a historic 800-metre Victorian pier.

The Amber Museum holds one of the world is largest collections of Baltic amber, with inclusions up to 50 million years old.

Birutes park offers 160 hectares of botanical garden, lake, and woodland within the town itself.