Klaipėda is the sea gate of Lithuania, and for most of its history it belonged to somebody else. The Teutonic Knights built a castle at the mouth of the Danė river in 1252, and for seven centuries the town was known as Memel, part of Prussia and then Germany, until it was returned to Lithuania in 1923. Traces of the old name and culture remain in the half-timbered warehouses of the old town, a few of which have been carefully restored, and in a bronze statue of Ännchen von Tharau, the heroine of a seventeenth century German song, standing in the market square.
The city is bright and busy, with a big port, container cranes and a long seafront. Across the narrow strait of the Curonian Lagoon lies the Curonian Spit, a thin ribbon of sand dunes and pine forest about a hundred kilometres long, shared with Russia, that is a UNESCO World Heritage site. A short ferry ride from the old town takes you to Smiltynė, where a small sea museum and dolphinarium stand, and from there a road runs south along the spit through fishing villages and past some of the highest drifting dunes in Europe, ending at Nida. Amber, washed up by storms on the Baltic shore, is sold in shops all over town and is part of the local culture.
For riders, Klaipėda is an excellent base for exploring west Lithuania and the Latvian border. Roads in the region are mostly flat and straight, passing through forests of pine and birch and fields of rye, and the surface is generally good, though some secondary roads have potholes or patches. The route south of the town runs close to the sea, and the one north leads toward Latvia and the town of Kuldīga, whose old brick centre and the Venta Rapid, a waterfall about two hundred and fifty metres wide, said to be the widest in Europe, make a good destination. Summer evenings stay light until very late, and winter brings ice and snow, so the best months are from May to September.
Fuel is abundant in town and on the highway, as are cafés and restaurants serving smoked fish, potato pancakes and cold beet soup. In July the city holds a sea festival, with ships and music along the river. A walk along the Danė at dusk, past the old warehouses, is a good end to the day.