Curonian Spit

4.4 km · ~79 min · 12 stops · free

The seaside idyll you feel today took shape rather late — only at the end of the 19th century. Before that, due to irresponsible human activity and intensifying winds, the entire spit had for several centuries turned into a harsh desert, and the constant struggle against the shifting sand, poverty and vanishing villages became everyday life in this land. The inhabitants of the buried village of Karvaičiai also lived through this tragedy. Attention! Prepare yourself for the natural challenges of the Curonian Spit: boggy lagoon-side wetlands, strong winds raging atop the dune ridge, and on hot days the scorching sun. Length of the loop trail: 4–5 km. Difficulty: moderate. Along the lagoon you will walk easily on pretty forest paths, but climbing the dune brings challenges — you will have to ascend as high as 50 metres, where considerable stretches of open sand await.

1. Cormorant resting site

   As you approach this place, you will hear the clamour of cormorants from afar. This is a resting site for birds that fish in the lagoon.

2. Bird-watching tower

   From the bird-watching towers a view opens onto Karvaičiai Bay — of the largest settlement that once stood here in the northern part of the spit, only the name remains.

3. Bird-watching tower

   From the tower you can watch birds nesting and wintering in the lagoon, or simply admire the wide panorama of the Curonian Lagoon.

4. Information stand about the buried village of Karvaičiai

   Here you will learn about the centuries-long tragedy of villages being buried by sand, and discover how the largest village in the northern part of the Curonian Spit — Karvaičiai — disappeared forever.

5. Foot of the steep Karvaičiai dune

   At the end of the 18th century, amid strong sand drifting, this dune began to advance onto the new village of Karvaičiai by the lagoon and within 30 years buried it completely under the sand. The reality of that time is perfectly captured by a brief note of a Prussian official about one of the homesteads: "The plot is covered with sand, the owner has died, the widow has gone begging."

6. Karvaičiai dune-shaped bench

   The mountain of sand that once buried the village now allures with green mountain-pine groves and cosy views. You can admire them while comfortably settled on a relief bench shaped like the Karvaičiai dune.

7. Great Dune Ridge

   The Great Dune Ridge, along whose crest part of the trail runs, was formed during the great sand drifts of the 17th–19th centuries from sand carried in by north and west winds. Over several centuries the travelling sands buried more than a dozen villages across the Curonian Spit.

8. Viewing bench on the summit of the Karvaičiai dune

   This is the summit of the Karvaičiai dune that once buried the village. Climbing onto the 2-metre-high viewing bench, you can admire panoramas of the mountain-pine groves, the sea and the lagoon of the Curonian Spit.

9. Mountain-pine groves

   In order to halt the moving sands, in 1897 the great dunes of this area began to be planted with mountain pines. Convicts and hired labourers were used as the workforce, and rails were laid across the dunes to transport the mountain-pine seedlings.

10. View of the lagoon

    As you travel across the sand hills planted with low mountain pines, views of the boundless lagoon and of the headlands and peninsulas reaching into it accompany you the whole way. If you grow weary of wading through the mountain-pine grove, think how weary the people must have been who planted millions of these seedlings, striving to save the last villages of the Curonian Spit from being buried.

11. Information stand

    From here you will begin your journey around the surroundings of the sand-buried village of Karvaičiai.

12. Information stand (Start/end of the trail)

Open the trail with an interactive map → goneringa.lt