Birutė Park and the Amber Museum in Palanga

The park covers 101.3 hectares. Its landscape plan was drawn up at the end of the 19th century for the Tiškevičiai counts by the French landscape architect Édouard François André, together with his son René and the Belgian gardener Buyssens de Coulon; 1897 is taken as the park’s symbolic founding date.

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This is not just a patch of woodland by the sea. André planned vistas that still work today: from the palace parterre the eye is drawn into the distance, and the paths are laid out so that it is hard to get lost, yet you keep turning off somewhere without meaning to.

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The park holds up to 250 species of introduced trees and shrubs and about 370 species of naturally growing herbaceous plants, 24 of them rare in Lithuania. In summer the orangery is open, from 1 June to 31 August, daily 10.00–19.00.

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It was designated a state-protected botanical park in 1960, so today it is at once a 19th-century manor garden, a botanical collection and an ordinary town park that Palanga locals walk through on their way to work.

The neo-Renaissance palace was built in 1897 for Count Feliksas Tiškevičius. It was designed by the German architect Franz Heinrich Schwechten, at the time one of the best-known architects in Berlin.

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On the south side the palace is ringed by a semicircular rose garden, and in front of the main facade lies the parterre with its fountain, which is where most photographs of Palanga are taken. In summer the roses are in bloom; in spring and autumn the geometry of the parterre itself shows better.

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The palace houses the Palanga Amber Museum, a branch of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art. The permanent exhibition fills 15 rooms, from how amber forms and its inclusions to jewellery.

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The museum is closed on Mondays and public holidays, and closes an hour earlier on the eve of a holiday. Last entry is one hour before closing, the most important number to remember if you are planning an evening visit. Guided tours run Tuesday to Friday and must be arranged in advance.

The hill in the southern part of the park is the oldest part of the site. According to legend, this is where the priestess Birutė lived before Duke Kęstutis took her as his wife; their son was Vytautas. In 1989 archaeologists found remains of a pagan cult on the hill, so the legend has a tangible basis too.

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At the top stands the octagonal neo-Gothic Chapel of St George, built of red brick in 1869 to a design by the architect Karol Majer. Its stained-glass windows date from 1976.

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For decades the summit was trampled freely, and the archaeological layer suffered badly. Today visitors are asked to climb only by the built steps and paths, the only way to preserve what is left.

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From the hill a path leads straight towards the sea, so many people end the route here; from the chapel to the water is a matter of minutes.

• The Lourdes grotto, built of natural stone in 1899 for Countess Antanina Tiškevičienė; the mason was the French master Bonhomme. A listed cultural heritage site since 1997.
• The sculpture Eglė, Queen of the Grass Snakes, by Robertas Antinis the elder, placed in 1960 beside the main path to the palace.
• The rotunda, a bandstand built in 1927. In summer the Palanga orchestra still plays here for free.
• Love Avenue, a path along the edge of the park leading towards the sea; the water is only a few dozen metres away from it.

The easiest option: enter the park from S. Darius and S. Girėnas Street and head towards the palace, passing the Lourdes grotto and Eglė, Queen of the Grass Snakes on the way. At the palace visit the museum, which deserves at least an hour, then turn south and climb Birutė Hill.

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From the hill walk down towards the sea and come back along Love Avenue or simply along the beach. The loop takes about an hour without the museum, two to three with it.

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The route works just as well in winter: the park is open all year round, and off-season the museum is both cheaper and emptier.