Parnidis Dune

One of the main things we wanted to see on the Curonian Spit were the sand dunes.

At the Spit there are 2 sets of dunes: the Parnidis Dune just next to Nida and the Dead Dune (also known as the Grey Dune or the Naglis Dune) outside of Juodkrante.

Both likely resulting from massive deforestation events, the Parnidis Dune is still “alive” and slowly moving over time whereas the Dead Dune has stopped this process and is now static at its current address. As such, it was difficult to choose which one to visit as both had their particular appeal.

In the end, pragmatism won and we decided to visit the Parnidis Dune as it was within walking distance from our base for the day: Nida.

The day started off cloudy and a little windy. Not entirely ideal for a walk in the woods but we were decided on doing it and after stuffing ourselves with a nice breakfast, we headed out of town for an adventure!

And an adventure we got! It had slowly started to rain as we walked out of town and near the lake but the skies simply opened up as we started walking up the hill onto the dune!

As it rained cats and dogs we simply could not find suitable cover and simply walked on, completely soaked with all of our belongings on our back!

Soldiering on up the hill we finally made our way to the sundial and to the view of the ocean from the dunes. A beautiful place which we could barely appreciate due to the diagonal rain falling down. Those are the breaks sometimes… At least we can say we´ve lived through a rainstorm on a sand dune. How about that?!

Walking back we passed the statue of Paul Sartre struggling against the wind and felt safe in the comfort that what we had gone through was not a freak event but is in fact so common that it was immortalized through sculpture.

At the end of the trip, after changing our clothes and sitting down for a warm tea at a café, we reflected upon our weekend at the Curonian Spit and at having had a walk in the rain.

That was a new “new” for us and as adventures go, we are happy we had it!