Klaipėda – Lithuanian Sea Museum 2011

The Lithuanian Sea Museum is one of four state-supported marine museums in the Baltic region. Among experts, the Lithuanian Sea Museum is considered on a par with the German Oceanographic Museum, the Gdynia Aquarium and the Museum of the World Ocean. On 08.06.2011, International World Ocean Day—proclaimed by the United Nations in 2009—is taking place for the first time, providing a good reason to visit the Lithuanian Sea Museum during a holiday in Lithuania.

The Lithuanian Sea Museum is located on the Curonian Spit, on the Kopgalis peninsula, overlooking the Russian exclave and the world-famous city of Klaipėda. The Sea Museum in Klaipėda is open year-round and can be easily included in a city tour. As with the maritime museum in Germany, the Lithuanian Sea Museum is housed in a historic building. Here in Lithuania, the route through the exhibition rooms also leads through the fortress on this offshore island, around 98 kilometres long, between the Curonian Lagoon and the Baltic Sea. The site was completely destroyed during the Second World War. With the fortress rebuilt, the Lithuanian Sea Museum found a fitting home here. Since then, through various events and changing marketing concepts, it has been writing a story all its own. Today, the Lithuanian Sea Museum is considered one of the best maritime museums in the Baltic states.

A visit to the Lithuanian Sea Museum is well worth a family outing during a holiday on the Baltic Sea in Lithuania. Visitors can expect moderate prices, opening hours adjusted to the season, and guided tours in English and German. The Lithuanian Sea Museum also includes a dolphinarium, which is currently closed for renovation. The Lithuanian Museum offers insights and fascinating perspectives on the world’s seas. Here in Lithuania, visitors can admire, above all, fish and the flora of the Baltic Sea, alongside the colourful variety of freshwater fish. The huge aquarium is home to zander, pike, catfish, perch and the typical Baltic eels; visitors can also admire the sturgeon. Marine fauna is an important part of the sea museum in Lithuania and is divided into four themes. “Work and live where others come for their holidays” is a saying often heard around the Baltic Sea, referring primarily to the lives of fishermen and sailors, whose fishing villages are increasingly seeing tourism take hold. An ethnographic fishing village at the Lithuanian Sea Museum reflects the lives of coastal fishermen. Of course, a land by the water is also home to seabirds and coastal wildlife. Here at the Sea Museum in Klaipėda, visitors encounter penguins as well as the well-known and equally fascinating grey seals and sea lions. Lithuania participates in the HELCOM project, which works to increase the seal population in the Baltic Sea.