Half day tour of Klaipeda

Historians maintain that the settlement of ancient Balts, the ancestors of modern Lithuanians, stood on the Kursiu Marios lagoon's coast at the Dane river estuary as early as the 1st century A.D. That fishing village, often attacked by various invaders, had to fight off the Vikings and resist the Dutch merchants' invasions. In 1252, Klaipeda was captured by the Livonian Order. As a result, the brick castle of Memelburg was erected on the estuary of the Dane river. Although Lithuanians who were reluctant to reconcile with the loss of the town tried to recapture it, they failed to win it back. Even after the victory at Zalgiris in 1410, when Lithuanians regained a significant part of Zemaitija (West Lithuania), Klaipeda remained under the Germans. For centuries to come, the town of Klaipeda remained under foreign rule.
The city tour features the Old Town of Klaipeda with its Theatre Square dominated by the statue of a girl named Ann from Tharau, narrow alleyways with attractive courtyards, art galleries, cafes and small boutiques, blocks of lattice-work buildings, old warehouses reflecting the influence of the Germanic architecture of the Hanseatic period.
Today, Klaipeda is one of the largest fishing and cargo ports on the Baltic Sea, important cruise ship port and a major cultural centre of Lithuania.

Optional:

• Clock and Watch Museum introduces the development of the construction of time measuring devices from older times until today; originals, models or reconstructed copies of ancient calendars, sun, water, fire and sand clocks, mechanical time measuring devices; exhibits which show the change of clock forms from Renaissance to modern styles. Together with the clocks from different countries, characteristic furniture and artistic works are selected and displayed according to particular periods.
• Museum 39/45 - World War II museum reflecting events in Klaipeda during WWII and inhabitants of the city during the war and city reconstruction time. Museum is filled with impressive installations and light effects. We recommend visiting this museum everybody that is interested in history.
• Maritime Museum and Aquarium. The museum collections include the sea fauna and insects, archaeological, ethnographic and iconographical items, coins, documents, ships and their equipment. Special stock of the Museum - animate exhibits: sea mammalians, birds, fishes - freshwater fishes of the Baltic sea and Lithuanian rivers and lakes, corralling fishes, tropic freshwater fishes, colony of penguins.

Regular sightseeing tour of Klaipeda takes 2 hours