Nemunas Delta Regional Park

Tulkiaragė Cognitive Trail

Nemunas Delta Regional Park (also know as Nemuno Deltos Regioninis Parkas in Lithuanian) is a 290 km² park in the Curonian Lagoon, by Nemunas Delta, in Lithuania. It's part of the ethnographic region of Lithuania Minor and here Nemunas river divides into some trivutary rivers (Rusnė, Skirvytė, Atmata, Pakalne, Vorusne and Aukstumale), and has also some lakes like Krokų Lanka. This park is barely visited by touristsand therefore the visitor will find a lot of peace, nature, beautiful villages and unspoilt places.

How do I arrive to Nemunas Delta Regional Park?

 The way enter into the Regional Park is through Šilute, the largest nearby town. It's near the border with Kaliningrad so it's also possible to arrive there.

• Bus: there are 10 daily buses to Šilute from Klaipėda (aprox. 1 hour; 3.90€, one way), Kaunas (aprox. 3 hours 30 minutes, 12€ one way) or from Vilnius (aprox. 5 hours 15 minutes, 22€ one way).
• Car: if you rented a car, Šilutė can be reached from other towns and cities in Lithuania such as Tauregė (aprox. 55 minutes), Klaipėda (aprox. 1 hour), Plungė (aprox. 1 hour 20 minutes) close to Žemaitija National Park, Šiauliai (aprox. 2 hour 15 minutes) or Kaunas (aprox. 2 hours 30 minutes). The park is also located by the border with the oblast of Kaliningrad (Russia), being able to arrive easily to Sovetsk (aprox. 50 minutes), Neman (aprox. 1 hour) or Kaliningrad (aprox. 1 hour 40 minutes)
  

 Once in the Park the best choice for moving is by boat (20% of the park's area is water). Boats can be rented in some towns like Kintai or Šilute, and the main routes are through Atmata, Skirvytė and Palkanė.

History

The main part of the territory later known as Lithuania Minor was inhabited by the tribes of Skalvians and Nadruvians. The land became depopulated to some extent during the warfare between Lithuania and the Teutonic Knights Order in the 13th century, which ended with the Treaty of Melno. It was always linked the the Order and then to Prussia (the National Park territory belonged to the Landkreis Heydekrug) untill 1920, as a part of Klaipėda Region. It became a mandated territory of the League of Nations in 1920 and was annexed to Lithuania in 1923, becoming an autonomous territory. In 1939 took place the German ultimatum to Lithuania, to get Klaipėda Region back. Nowadays hardly anything remains of the original culture due to the expulsion of Germans after WW2, but this region made an important impact in Lithuanian during the years of the Lithuanian press ban, when most of the books in this language were published in Lithuania Minor. 
The Regional Park was created in 1994 and it's main activity is still fishing.
 

What can I visit in Nemunas Delta Regional Park?

Visiting the Regional Park is an awesome experience but it's a fragile environment, so we must reduce our impact on it. These are some things to do in this Regional Park, explained now according to the town where they are or the nearest one:

• Šilutė (Heydekrug in German): town with 16,812 inhabitants in the outskirts of the regional park, with an important history related to Germany. It was part of the Klaipėda Region (also known as Memel Territory) and was quite important because of being between Memel (Klaipėda) and Tilsit (Sovetsk).
  
  • Šilutė Museum (Tue-Fri 10-18; Sat 10-16; 5€/ 2.50€  adults/ retiree and students/ kids under 7): museum located in the 19th century manor of Hugo Sheu (or Hugo Šojus), a landowner and patron that was very interested in preventing Lithuanian language, traditions and businesses disappearing in the former Kingdom of Prussia. It hosts an ethnographic collection with urniture, clothes, documents, prints and maps, the first museum in the region of Klaipėda.
  • Šilutė Lutheran Church: church built in 1926 with modernized Neo-Gothic forms. It is considered one of the most beautiful Lutheran churches in East Prussia thanks to the artist Richard Pfeifer, who painted an impressing fresco with 120 figures that were important for the history of the church and has an impressive altar too.
    
  • Šilutė Old Protestant Cemetery: cemetery established in 1832, with a chapel from 1907 and is an open air museum. Many tombstones were badly damaged during the Soviet era. In 1907, a brick armored chapel was built in the cemetery, which has survived to this day (the chapel was restored). Here it's buried the famous Lithuanian writer Herman Zuderman.
  • St. Kryžiaus Catholic Church: church built in 1854 with Neo-Gothic and Neo-Romanesque feautures that used to held services in German and Lithuanian (currently just in Lithuanian). Its interior is decorated with Neo-Gothic altars and pulpit.
  • Stalag Luft VI: complex that was used as German prisoner-of-war camp during WW2 (the northernmost within the confines of the German Reich). It housed Polish, French, Belgian and Russian prissioners, reaching 9,000 allied prissioners in 1944. The Soviet Union used it as a gulag for German soldiers and Lithuanian partisans and dissidents until 1948. It is believed that around 3,000 people died here and there's a museum explaining the history and context of the camp.
    
  • In way from Šilutė to Rusnė Island there's a cool yellow metal bridge over the river Šyša but before, it can be enjoyed Žalgiriai Cognitive Trail (1.5 km), a short trail that gets deeper into Žalgiriai forest and where the visitor can visit H. Zuderman's Oak, a more than a century-old oak that is the only natural monument in the regional park.
• Rusnė (Ruß in German): small town with 1,630 people in Rusnė Island, a very popular place for practising angling (fishing method). The town has a small pier too, Rusnė Pier. Here Kursenieki, a Baltic ethnic group used to live (but they are nearly extinct). Their language has just 2 speakers and is similar to some dialects of Latvian.
  • Rusnė Lutheran Church: church first built in the 16th century, originally Catholic (untill the Reformation was introduced), one of the oldest churches in the area. The temple was destroyed by three fires in the 18th century and rebuilt using bricks in 1808.
  • Fishermen Ethnographic Museum of Rusnė (10-15 Sat-Sun from May to Sep; free): small ethnographic museum placed into a former farm that shows the tough living conditions in Nemunas Delta in the past (19th and 20th centuries), specially focused on the life of fishermen.
  • To explore more about Rusnė it's a good idea to take the Walking Trail around Rusnė (15.9 km). This trail allows the visitor to know the main sightseeing points in the town and its surrounding nature and getting very nice views of the Curonian Lagoon at Rusnės Observation Deck.
  • Uostadvaris Polder Museum: small museum placed in a water lifting station in 1907, steam turbine that sucks excess water from meadows and directs it towards the Nemunas Delta. A new water lifting station was built next to it in 2007.
    
  • Uostadvaris Lighthouse: lighthouse built in 1873 in front of the mouth of river Minija, an important shipping point. Today it is located about 2 km from water and it is not used for navigation anymore but for tourists as an observation tower.
  • To get to know Rusnė Island more the visitor can walk Rusnė Island Route (23 km), a route around the island that starts and finishes in Rusnė and reaches places like Uostadvaris or Rusnė Viewtower.
  • There's another available route that allows to discover all the regional park, Rusnė Island-Ventė Cape Route (34 km), a trip recommended to be done in bicycle that goes around all the main sightseeing points here. It also has a that goes to Krokų Lanka Lake and Mingė (6.9 km).
    
• In the center of the Neumas Delta it can be visited Minija (Minge in German), nicknamed as the Lithuanian Venice. This small fishermen village by Minge river has some 19th and 20th houses with typical Pomeranian architecture and hosts some of the last witnesses of Prussian Lithuanian dialect (lietuvininkai). It's also close to Krokų Lanka Lake, the only lake of marine origin in Lithuania and the largest lake in Šilutė District, and Krokų Bay Observation Tower to observed the Curonian Lagoon.
  
• Kintai (Kinten in German): 616 inhabitants village in the northern part of the regional park whose ethnical composition of the population changed after WW2 (Lietuvininkai and Germans that moved to the west and Lithuanians came from all over Lithuania).
  
  • Vydūnas Museum (9-18 Mon-Fri, 10-18 Sat): small memorial museum and cultural center focused on the popular Lithuanian writer and philosopher Vydūnas, (who opened in the former school in Kintai).
  • Kintai Lutheran Church: small church from 1705 with the typical architecture of eastern Prussian in the 17th century. Catholics pray here too.
    
  • Great Thuja of Kintai: 18m high giant cedar that is considered the second highest in Europe.
  • Ventė Cape Lighthouse: lighthouse built in 1863. It is one of the few lighthouses in Lithuania that can be visited and has nice views from the Curonian Spit.
    
  • Ventė Cape Ornithological Station (10-16; 3€ /2€  adults/retiree, students and kids): station established by Tadas Ivanauskas in 1929 that hosts around 100,000 birds during the migratory period, having a cublicle to observe them and expositions about the flora and fauna of the station. It's one of the oldest bird ringing stations still in operation in Europe and it can be enjoyed one of the biggest bird migration ways over the eastern shore of Baltic Sea.
    
• In the way from Šilutė to Ventė Cape it can be enjoyed Aukštumala Marsch Educational Trail (1.4 km), a kūlgrinda (hidden underwater stony road) next to Aukštumala river, or Tulkiaragė Educational Trail (2.5 km), with enables to discover human's impact who built embankments, installed a polder or mowed fertile meadows. 

Minijas

Šilutė Lutheran Church

Tauragė Castle

Going 60 km east from Šilutė it can be arrived to Tauragė (Tauragie in Samogitian, Tauroggen in German, Taurogi in Polish), a 21,520 inhabitants industrail town on river Jūra on the ethnographic area of Samogitia, not far from Kaliningrad. It is also the family origin of the Russian bussinessman Roman Abramovich. Visitors usually don't visit this town but once here, it has some things to do. The landmark of the town is Tauragė Castle, a castle built in 1840s in Neo-Renaissance style that was used as a customs building between that the Russian Empire had with Prussia. Today, among others, is home of Tauragė Region Museum (9-17 Mon-Thu, 9-15:45 Fri, 10-16 Sat), a museum with archaeology, history, ethnography and nature exhibitions about the region of Tauragė. In Tauragė there are different churches, some of the most important being: St. Trejybės Catholic Church (church from 1904, that was first a wooden temple from 1507, that features of Neo-Romantic and Neoclassical styles), Tauregė Lutheran Church (Neo-Romantic church from the 1840s that used to be seat of the Lutheran Church of Lithuania, moved then to Vilnius) and Tauregė Russian Orthodox Church. The town has a park with symbols of the old Baltic culture too, Jūra Park. Not far from there town there's Pagramantis Regional Park, a park established to preserve the scenic views of alleys and forests at the confluence of rivers Akmena and Jūra.

Where can I eat in Nemunas Delta Regional Park?

The best choice in this National Park is eating local food. But unfortunatelly there aren't many choices so the best idea can be gettting in a place which catches your eye and seems professional. Otherwise you can always buy in supermarkets and prepare picnics. If you decided to be stay in a farm, they may offer you meals for some extra money (but that's probably local). 

Posted in: Europe,Lithuania,Regional Park