Private Shore Excursion: Walking Tour of Klaipeda Old Town and visit to Palanga

The Palanga Amber Museum is located in the restored 19th-century Tiškevičiai Palace and is surrounded by the Palanga Botanical Garden. The museum's collection of amber numbers about 28,000 pieces, of which about 15,000 contain inclusions of insects, spiders, or plants. The Baltic sea coast is known for its large deposits of amber, so the many of exciting museum pieces come from just outside the museum door.

This landscape park is one of the prettiest, best preserved, and best maintained parks in coastal region of Lithuania. In 1897 Count Felix Tiškevičius founded this park around the palace built in the same year. The park was designed by the famous French landscape architect and botanist Eduard Fransua Andre, (1840 -1911).

Sea bridge in Palanga is probably the most popular tourist attraction in Lithuanian beach resort town of Palanga. It reaches into the sea for 407 metres and is shaped in the form of letter L. The pier provides a chance to see the shore from a different perspective while going for a walk, at the same time, it is still opened for small tourist ships in summer.

The famous J. Basanavičiaus Street is one of the most popular places of holiday-makers in Lithuania. This street was formerly called Tyshkevich Street or Boulevard. Later it was called after the nation’s patriarch dr. J. Basanavičius. This is a historical part of the city where are a lot of old buildings of traditional architecture, most of them remember almost 200 years history of the resort.

The Most Holy Virgin Mary’s Ascension Church in Palanga was built more than hundred years ago and attracts almost every gaze of the passers-by with its neo-gothic beauty and greatness. There are also something to be admired inside: an impressive pulpit and three skilfully made marble altars decorated with bas-reliefs brought from France.

Klaipėda's Old Town is different from the rest of Lithuania since it has a lot of German and Scandinavian architecture. It is unique with its fachwerk architectural style and the planned street structure, can't be found in any other old town in Lithuania. Its streets are geometrically configured very correctly, and the angle of intersection is always straight.

Klaipėda Castle, also known as Memelburg or Memel Castle, is an archeological site and museum housed in a castle built by the Teutonic Knights. The castle was first mentioned in written sources in 1252, and underwent numerous destructions and reconstructions in the centuries that followed.

One of most popular places in Klaipėda‘s old town is The Theatre Square. Another notable building is the Drama Theatre. Since the 18th century, the theatre has played an important role in the cultural life of Klaipėda. The square hosts a variety of concerts, the Sea Festival, the International Jazz Festival and other events.

Ann from Tharau fountain at the center of the Theater square is the monument dedicated to Simon Dach, a German poet who was born in Klaipėda and studied at Konigsberg University.

Magic Mouse - a sculpture installed in the historical center of Klaipeda in 2006. Made of bronze and stone, the authors of the project are sculptors Sergejus Plotnikovas, Svayjunas Jurkus and architect Vytautas Paulionis.

The steel sculpture "Dragon" was created to illustrate one of the legends retelling the origins of Klaipėda. One of the stories tells of two brothers who went out to find a new suitable place to found a city. The 145 kg in weight, over three-meter-long dragon hangs on the wall is not just for decoration, but fulfills the function of a rain pipe. During rain, one can see water splashing out of the jaws of the dragon.

For many years the object of attraction in Klaipėda's Old Town was the granite sculpture called "The cat with the face of a gentleman", which was created by artist R. Midvikis in 1980. Twice, the sculpture was rebuilt after hooligans stole it, but soon enough it disappeared again. In the summer of 2006, on the occasion of city's birthday, the cat returned to its rightful place in the Kalvių street square.