Free Walking Tour Klaipėda: Castle, Old Town, Sailing Ship

Your Klaipėda Walking Tour Along the Danė, Stop by Stop

1. 1

   Klaipeda Castle Museum

   

   Before Klaipėda had its Lithuanian name, it was Memel, and it took that name from this castle. The Teutonic Knights called their fortress Memelburg, and the city was generally known as Memel until 1923, when Lithuanian forces took it over. What you visit today is an archaeological site: the museum sits underneath one of the old bastions and shows remains of castle walls from the 14th to the 17th century.

   The story starts with a contract. In 1252, Eberhard von Sayn, acting for the Grand Master of the Order, agreed with the Curonian bishop to build a fortification between the Nemunas and the Danė. The Knights were fighting the Prussians and wanted to hold what they had won. The first Memelburg was wooden, guarded by a tower and stood in marshy ground, probably on the left bank of the Danė. The swamp seems to have been the problem: already in 1253 a stone castle rose on the right bank.

   It became a front-line outpost in the long war against the pagan Lithuanians and their Samogitian allies, and it paid for it. In 1379 Samogitians and Lithuanians destroyed it; in 1393 a great defensive tower went up and was torn down by the Lithuanians the very same year. In the 19th century, with its military value gone, the castle was demolished. Excavations followed in the 20th century, the museum opened in 2002, and a restoration was completed in 2021.

   Going inside costs admission, but it is worth it if you like archaeology or medieval history, since this is the only place on the route where the city's origins are physical. If you only want the outline of Klaipėda's past, the History Museum of Lithuania Minor a few minutes on covers it. From the castle, it is 680 m and 9 minutes to the Old Market.

   Local name

   Klaipėdos pilis

   Hours

   Summer (15.06.-16.09.): Wed–Sun 10:00–18:00, Mon–Tue closed. Off-season (17.09.-14.06.): Tue–Sat 10:00–18:00, Sun–Mon closed

   Price

   6 EUR full, 3 EUR reduced

   Website

   mlimuziejus.lt ↗

   Location

   Klaipeda Castle Museum on Google Maps ↗

2. 2

   Old Market

   

   After a castle that no longer stands, the Old Market is the city at work. It is an open square with pavilions, and it keeps its own rhythm: the stalls are busiest early in the day, so if you want the market alive, come in the morning.

   Entry is free and there is nothing to queue for. Walk once around the square, see what the stalls offer that day, buy something for later if it tempts you, and move on. Markets have shaped this part of Klaipėda for a long time; on Theatre Square you will hear how the trading once stretched in a long line through the Old Town.

   From here it is 310 m and 4 minutes to the History Museum of Lithuania Minor, which explains the region you are standing in.

   Hours

   Tue–Sat 07:00–17:00, Sun–Mon 07:00–16:00

   Price

   Free

   Website

   naujasisturgus.lt ↗

   Location

   Old Market on Google Maps ↗

3. 3

   History Museum of Lithuania Minor

   

   Lithuania Minor is the name for the Lithuanian-speaking lands that for centuries belonged to Prussia, and this museum at Didžioji Vandens g. 2 tells their story together with Klaipėda's own. It began modestly. Adomas Brakas and a society of supporters founded it on 24 June 1924 as the Klaipėda Region Museum, without permanent rooms and with few objects: 84 in 1931, 965 in 1934, 1545 in 1938.

   Then history intervened. When Nazi Germany took over the Klaipėda region in 1939, the museum was closed. Its first new exhibition opened in 1950, and on 17 June 1988 it took its present name and moved into the Old Town. By 2008 its collections held more than 90,000 items, among them the Gargždai treasures, the Dvarninkai and Kunigiškiai hoards and finds from the Girkaliai burial ground. Its archaeologists have run excavations since 1954.

   The museum also reaches further than its own walls. It runs the Castle Museum you just left, a Blacksmith Museum in the old forge of G. Klacke and F. Grimm, and it is responsible for the sculptures in the park where this walk ends. Even the Lithuanian Sea Museum grew out of a maritime department it set up in 1967.

   The museum charges admission. If you choose only one museum on the route, choose this one: it gives you the frame for everything outside, from the German half-timbering to the changing flags. Afterwards it is just 110 m, 2 minutes, into the streets of Klaipeda Old Town.

   Local name

   Mažosios Lietuvos istorijos muziejus

   Hours

   Summer (15.06.-16.09.): Wed–Sun 10:00–18:00, Mon–Tue closed. Off-season (17.09.-14.06.): Tue–Sat 10:00–18:00, Sun–Mon closed

   Price

   4 EUR full, 2 EUR reduced

   Website

   mlimuziejus.lt ↗

   Location

   History Museum of Lithuania Minor on Google Maps ↗

4. 4

   Klaipeda Old Town

   

   The Old Town is the oldest part of Klaipėda, set at the mouth of the Danė, and the first thing to notice is its geometry: the streets form a regular grid, crossing almost everywhere at right angles. Look at the houses, too. The half-timbered construction is typical of German towns, a reminder of the centuries when this was Memel, and among the streets survive fragments of the 17th and 18th century fortifications.

   The grid is no accident. In the second half of the 15th century people began settling on a peninsula on the right bank of the Old Dangė, and when the castle was rebuilt in the early 16th century all townspeople moved there. After a fire in 1540 the street network you walk today took shape. In 1722 the neighbouring Friedrichstadt was joined to the town.

   Keep your eyes open for the details. 18th century half-timbered warehouses now house art workshops. The Arka monument, 8.5 m tall and weighing 150 tonnes, was raised in 2003 for the 80th anniversary of the Klaipėda region joining Lithuania. The quarter also holds the Old Ferry, the surviving slipway of P. Lindenau's shipyard, founded in 1919 and the root of modern shipbuilding here, and the Blacksmith Museum.

   The Old Town is free and open at any hour. Give it twenty minutes of aimless wandering, then walk 140 m, 2 minutes, to the square at its centre.

   Local name

   Klaipėdos senamiestis

   Hours

   Freely accessible, no opening hours

   Price

   Free

   Location

   Klaipeda Old Town on Google Maps ↗

5. 5

   Theatre Square with Simon Dach Fountain

   

   Theatre Square is the central square of the Old Town, framed by the Drama Theatre and half-timbered buildings. In its middle stands the figure the city treats as its symbol: Ännchen von Tharau, the heroine of a poem by Simon Dach, a poet of the Klaipėda region, whose verses became a song. Her statue rises above a fountain that serves as Dach's monument.

   Ännchen has had an eventful life. The original, by the sculptor Alfred Kühne, was unveiled in 1912 and disappeared during the Second World War. The copy you see was put back on 18 November 1989, the work of H. Haacke. Look up at the theatre's balcony as well: on 23 March 1939, Adolf Hitler spoke from it to mark the annexation of the Klaipėda region to Germany.

   The square itself is younger than the streets around it. In 1819 part of the castle moats was filled in and a market opened here; in 1860 a market hall went up at its edge. When a new market was founded, the square ended up between two trading places and merged with them, so that in the first half of the 20th century Turgaus Street, Theatre Square and the New Market formed one long marketplace reaching from St John's Church to the castle. Today the square hosts the annual Castle Jazz festival, Sea Festival events and fairs.

   It is free and always open. From the fountain, walk 440 m, 6 minutes, to the river, where a sailing ship waits.

   Local name

   Teatro aikštė

   Hours

   Freely accessible, no opening hours

   Price

   Free

   Website

   klaipeda.lt ↗

   Location

   Theatre Square with Simon Dach Fountain on Google Maps ↗

6. 6

   Meridianas

   

   The Meridianas is a wooden barquentine moored in the city centre on the left bank of the Danė, and like Ännchen she counts as a symbol of Klaipėda. After a major overhaul from 2012 to 2014 the ship is open to visitors. On deck and inside you find exhibitions of her equipment, wooden structural parts, ballast stones and her original propeller.

   Her origin is a piece of post-war politics. In September 1944 Finland signed an armistice with the USSR and had to pay war reparations of 300 million US dollars, partly in kind: nearly a hundred wooden sailing ships. Four Finnish yards built 91 of them, and the Meridianas, listed simply as No. 5, came from the Oy Laivateollisuus Ab yard in Turku in 1947 and 1948.

   On 3 May 1949 the Klaipėda nautical school took her over. From 1954 she sailed in the Baltic training fleet with Riga as home port, carrying cadets from Kaliningrad, Riga and Klaipėda; between 1961 and 1965 she called at ports in Europe and Africa. In 1968 she was struck off the list of seagoing training ships, and the tug Kagul towed her to Klaipėda. In 1971 she reopened as a restaurant that was then the city's place to be seen. Her oddest sale came in 2001, when Artūras Žičkus bought her for a symbolic single litas.

   Boarding costs a fee that you pay at the ship; it is worth it for anyone who wants to stand on a real Baltic training ship rather than just photograph one. From here, the final leg is the longest: 1240 m, about 17 minutes, to the Klaipeda Sculpture Park, and just before the park you pass the Pranas Domsaitis Gallery.

   Hours

   Mon–Thu 11:00–22:00, Fri 11:00–24:00, Sat 12:00–24:00, Sun 12:00–21:00

   Website

   restoranasmeridianas.lt ↗

   Location

   Meridianas on Google Maps ↗

7. 7

   Klaipeda Sculpture Park

   

   The Klaipeda Sculpture Park, also called the Martynas Mažvydas Sculpture Park, is an L-shaped park of 10 hectares in the centre of the city. Between its trees stand 116 modern sculptures by 61 Lithuanian artists, made between 1977 and 1991; ten of the artists received the National Prize for Culture and Arts. In 1986 the park was declared a natural monument of local importance.

   What makes it unusual lies under your feet. This was the city cemetery, where about 40,000 people were buried from 1820 into the second half of the 20th century. A small graveyard already appears on the city plan of 1762: during the Seven Years' War Russian soldiers and German prisoners were buried here. On 7 January 1820 the Memel Städtischer Friedhof was consecrated for all Christian denominations. By 1856 it was almost full, so the eastern part was covered with a layer of earth and raised for new burials. After 1871 French prisoners of war who had dug the Wilhelm Canal were laid to rest here. The last burial took place in 1959.

   Walk it slowly and treat it as both: an open-air gallery and a place of memory whose fate mirrors the city's own changes of rule. The sculptures are in the care of the History Museum of Lithuania Minor, which closes the circle with the museum you visited in the Old Town. Entry is free and the park is always open, so this is a good place to end without watching the clock; the bus and railway stations are right next door.

   Local name

   Klaipėdos skulptūrų parkas

   Hours

   Freely accessible, no opening hours

   Price

   Free

   Website

   mlimuziejus.lt ↗

   Location

   Klaipeda Sculpture Park on Google Maps ↗

Shorter Ways Through Klaipėda

Not every day has room for four hours. These cuts keep the route's logic and leave out what matters least for your interest.

Old Town core in under ten minutes of walking

Stops: 2, 3, 4, 5

For a tight morning or a stopover: market, regional museum, the half-timbered streets and Theatre Square sit close together, 8 minutes of walking in total. Only the History Museum of Lithuania Minor charges admission.

From Memelburg to the barquentine

Stops: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

For history lovers who want the castle and the ship but can skip the park: 23 minutes of walking. You pay admission at the Klaipeda Castle Museum, the History Museum of Lithuania Minor and on board the Meridianas.

Theatre Square, ship and sculptures

Stops: 5, 6, 7

For an afternoon after the museums have closed or on a museum rest day: 23 minutes of walking from the Ännchen fountain to the river and on into the park. Everything is free except boarding the Meridianas.

How Long Does This Klaipėda Tour Take with the Museums?

The pure walking time is 40 minutes; the longest leg is the last one, 1240 m from the Meridianas to the Klaipeda Sculpture Park. Everything else in the Old Town lies within a few minutes of each other.

With both museums and a look around the ship, plan about four hours: start at the castle at 10:00, spend 45 minutes inside, and you reach the Old Market at 10:54, the History Museum of Lithuania Minor at 11:18, Theatre Square at 12:27 and the Meridianas at 12:48. Half an hour on board and a 17 minute walk put you in the park at 13:35; finish around 14:05.

Skipping all interiors and keeping short pauses outside, the full route takes about two hours and twenty minutes. The Old Town core variant fits into roughly an hour and a half with the museum, the two longer variants into two to three hours.

Before You Set Off from Klaipėda Castle

• Start: The Klaipeda Castle Museum is the recommended start, because the city's story begins there. You can join the route at any stop.
• End: The Klaipeda Sculpture Park. The bus and railway stations lie on its north-west side, so the walk ends right where you can leave town.
• Best days: Pick a day when both museums are open. Their rest days change with the season, so check before you go.
• Time of day: Start in the morning: the museums are open by then, and the Old Market is at its liveliest before the stalls pack up in the afternoon. The Meridianas comes later in the walk.
• Costs: The Klaipeda Castle Museum and the History Museum of Lithuania Minor charge admission, with reduced tickets available, and there is an admission fee on board the Meridianas, payable at the ship. Market, Old Town, Theatre Square and park cost nothing.

Common Questions About Walking Klaipėda