A summer day on the Curonian Spit
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- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
- For a week now I've been looking out the window at the Curonian Spit every morning when I get up. In the more recent German history of the past 150 years, this elongated peninsula between the Curonian Lagoon and the Baltic Sea has been a place of longing.
The Prussian scholar and statesman Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote to his wife from there at the beginning of the 19th century: "The Curonian Spit is so remarkable that one must have seen it just as well as Spain and Italy, if not a wonderful picture shall be lacking in the soul." He only got to know the spit on an autumnal wagon ride, "24 hours, one day and a moonlit night, always along the beach, always with one wheel in the water", as he writes, in 1809, when the spit was desolate. [Note: At the end of the video I attribute this quote to Alexander von Humboldt, the brother of the actual quoter. I researched it though and not only was Alexander von Humboldt in Paris at the time, but he was never married and so couldn't have written this quote to his wife. However, many publications attribute it to him and I think it could just as easily have been his.]
The Curonian Spit is a crystallization point in the history of Memelland and large parts of East Prussia. Perhaps also of other former German areas. Because there it is impossible to overlook how different populations, languages, cultures and denominations lived intertwined with each other and stretched a common thread through history. The former German places with the peculiar Curonian names now have Lithuanian ones. The division of the Spit into a Lithuanian and a Russian part manifests both the end of the Second World War and the geopolitical situation of the Cold War to this day in this small section of the Baltic Sea.
The Curonian Spit lets you experience nature intensively in a special way. Basically, there is nothing there that cannot be found elsewhere: dunes, forest, meadows, beach and sea. At many places, the Curonian Lagoon is only a few kilometers wide and mostly only four to five meters deep. It is said that when the sun is low you can see the elks in the clearings, but I doubt that these huge wild animals stray here regularly. The spit has long been in human hands. The last wolf was shot here in 1766. The last red deer in 1920.
On this excursion we take the bus across the lagoon near Klaipeda and drive first to Juodkrante (Schwarzort). There we walk over the Hexenberg (witch mountain) with its mythical wood carvings. We continue to Nida (Nidden). There we visit the church and meet the pastor, who tells us how pragmatically the people here organize their coexistence of the different denominations. In the cemetery we look at the Curonian signs. A kind of tombstones that only exist here. We take the ship along the Curonian Spit and the big dune to the south to the border with Russia. We must turn back there.
The Spit was also a place of longing for the famous German writer Thomas Mann. So much that he had a house built here. We visit it and I try to imagine Thomas Mann looking out the window of his study while he was writing and pondering on the next phrase.
Schöner Bericht! Erinnert mich gleich wieder an meine Reise von 2019. Wunderschön dort. Eigentlich ein Urlaubs-Geheimtip!
Traumhaft schön die Heimat meiner Großeltern und Eltern, diese mussten sie 1944 mit Tränen in den Augen verlassen.
Wunderschön! Vielen Dank für das tolle Bericht und die schönen Bilder und Eindrücke. ❤
Schön im Sommer, aber unangenehmes Klima im Winter.
Der bisher beste Bericht über die Kurische Nehrung den ich bisher auf RUclips gefunden habe. Sehr informativ und gute Bildqualität. Plane schon lange,dort einmal hinzufahren.
Super wunderschön sogar ehemals Deutsche Orte erwähnt Danke.
Danke für das Lob!
Hatte einen tollen Ausflug gebucht vom Kreuzfahrtschiff war überwältigt ❤
Super gemacht!
Ja,die Erzählungen meiner Vorfahren !
Damals,als es noch keine Grenzen gab und und die Elche durch's Haff geschwommen sind.Vielen Dank für das Video.
Ich glaube,die Elche schwimmen trotz der Grenze😅