Juodkrantė is the quietest, greenest corner of the Curonian Spit. A village of wooden houses and old villas looking out over the lagoon, surrounded by pine forests and dunes, halfway between the Klaipėda ferry and famous Nida. It is the oldest settlement on the spit and, for many travellers, its most authentic face: without Nida's crowds, with a serene atmosphere, a lovely lagoon-side promenade and two natural and cultural gems that make it unique: the Hill of Witches and a large colony of herons and cormorants.
The Hill of Witches (Raganų kalnas) is a magical trail that climbs a wooded dune, populated by some eighty wooden sculptures carved by Lithuanian artists in the 1970s and 80s. Witches, devils, dragons and heroes of Baltic folklore appear among the pines, on a walk that delights kids and adults alike. A few steps away in the forest is one of the largest colonies of grey herons and cormorants in northern Europe, an impressive natural (and olfactory) spectacle viewed from wooden platforms.
This guide covers Juodkrantė from a practical angle: how to get there on the ferry from Klaipėda, how to get around the spit by bike or bus, what to see — the Hill of Witches, the bird colony, the lagoon promenade, the Baltic beach, the spit's old architecture — and what to keep in mind (the Neringa local fee, the national park rules). An ideal destination to switch off, walk among pines and dunes and discover the most peaceful side of the Lithuanian Baltic.
Inhabited since ancient times by the Curonians, lagoon fishermen, Juodkrantė is the oldest settlement on the Curonian Spit. Under Prussian and later German rule, in the 19th century it developed in two ways: for a few decades it was an important amber extraction centre in the lagoon (the so-called 'Amber Bay', Gintaro įlanka) and, above all, a fashionable seaside resort and summer retreat in East Prussia, with villas, hotels and a promenade. After the Second World War, the old German population fled or was expelled and the village ended up in Soviet Lithuania, in a restricted border zone. Between 1979 and 1981, Lithuanian sculptors created the Hill of Witches on a wooded dune, with figures from Baltic folklore. In 2000, the Curonian Spit was declared a World Heritage Site. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The Lithuanian Baltic and Lithuania Minor with its German roots: the port of Klaipėda (the former Memel), the dunes of the Curonian Spit that Thomas Mann loved, the beaches and amber of Palanga, and wooded Samogitia.
Read the history of The coast: Klaipėda, Nida and Palanga →They depart from Klaipeda, 18 km away. If you book from this link we earn a commission and you pay no more.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Juodkrantė claims to be the oldest settlement on the Curonian Spit, the narrow tongue of sand almost a hundred kilometres long that separates the Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea. Its name, which means 'black shore' in Lithuanian and 'Schwarzort' in German, calls to mind the dark line of pine forest seen from the water. Like the rest of the spit, this coast was settled long ago by the Curonians (kuršiai), a Baltic people of fishermen who gave the region its name. Much of the area's traditional culture comes from them.
For centuries, life in these villages revolved around fishing in the lagoon, which teems with eel, pikeperch and other fish, and around the hard task of living with sand, forest and sea. Fishermen built flat-bottomed boats designed especially for the shallow lagoon, the kurėnai. They marked them with carved and painted wooden weathervanes (vėtrungės), whose symbols and colours showed the village and family each boat belonged to. That culture, along with the painted wooden houses, makes up the heritage of the spit that survives today.
After the crusader conquest of the Baltic between the 13th and 15th centuries, the spit came under the rule of the Teutonic Order and was later absorbed into Prussia. The population became partly Germanised, though for a long time it kept elements of the old Curonian culture and Baltic language. Like the rest of the spit, Juodkrantė thus became a cultural frontier between the Prussian Germanic world and the Baltic one, always shaped by the sea, the sand and fishing.
In the mid-19th century, Juodkrantė went through an episode unique in the history of the spit: the industrial extraction of amber, known as 'Baltic gold'. The German firm Stantien & Becker won the concession to dredge the Curonian Lagoon for this prized amber, which is plentiful on the Baltic seabed and beaches. Between the 1860s and the 1890s, the company ran a large-scale operation off Juodkrantė, with dredgers, hundreds of workers and huge quantities of amber brought up. That work gave its name to Amber Bay (Gintaro įlanka).
The dredging also turned up an extraordinary archaeological find: the 'Juodkrantė treasure', a collection of prehistoric (Neolithic) amber figurines, amulets and ornaments. They showed that amber had been used for ritual and decoration in the region for thousands of years. German specialists studied the collection, and parts of it were scattered over time, but it remains key evidence of how old amber culture in the Baltic is.
The amber rush left its mark on Juodkrantė's memory and on the economy of the spit. It also linked the small fishing village to international amber markets, at a time of strong demand for jewellery and luxury goods. When the mining declined, the village was already starting another transformation that would define its 19th and early 20th centuries: becoming an elegant East Prussian seaside resort.
Under Prussian and later German Imperial rule, Juodkrantė (Schwarzort to the Germans) became a fashionable summer destination, like much of the spit. Through the 19th and early 20th centuries, the area's unusual beauty drew holidaymakers from the cities of East Prussia: pine forests, dunes, a calm lagoon and northern light. Most came from nearby Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) and Memel (today's Klaipėda). The fishing village gained elegant villas, hotels, a spa, a waterfront promenade and sea baths.
Like Nida, Juodkrantė also drew artists and an educated middle class who came for the nature and peace of the spit. Wooden chalets with carved lacework went up, along with a Lutheran church, and the village took on the feel of a Baltic resort, with concerts, strolls and bathing. It became a much-loved spot for German summer holidays, fully part of East Prussia's Germanic culture, with its Protestant life and seasonal calendar.
That golden age as a German resort lasted into the first half of the 20th century. It left Juodkrantė an architectural legacy that can still be seen in the villas and houses along the lagoon promenade. Yet nothing suggested that the Second World War and its aftermath would completely change the spit's fate, wiping out the German world Juodkrantė had belonged to for centuries.
The Second World War split the history of the spit in two. After Germany's defeat in 1945, old East Prussia vanished from the map. Its northern part, around Königsberg, was annexed by the Soviet Union as Kaliningrad Oblast (now Russia), and the southern half of the Curonian Spit ended up in that Russian territory. The northern half, with Juodkrantė and Nida, became part of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. The spit's German population fled the advancing Red Army or was expelled afterwards, and Lithuanians resettled the villages.
In the Soviet era, the spit became a sensitive, restricted border zone. It bordered the heavily militarised Russian territory of Kaliningrad and lay on the Baltic coast, so access was controlled. Daily life was shaped by border guards and the restrictions that come with a security zone. At the same time, the regime valued the spit as a place to rest, and Juodkrantė also grew into a holiday centre, with rest homes and summer camps.
It was in Soviet Juodkrantė that its most famous attraction was born. Between 1979 and 1981, a group of Lithuanian sculptors created the Hill of Witches (Raganų kalnas) on a wooded dune in the village. It is a collection of wooden sculptures inspired by Baltic folklore and mythology, reviving the Samogitian carving tradition and the Midsummer (St John's Eve) celebrations once held on that hill. The art project was tolerated and even encouraged as an expression of folk culture, and over time it became the symbol of Juodkrantė.
When Lithuania regained its independence in 1990, a new chapter began for the Curonian Spit. Free of Soviet border restrictions, it opened fully to tourism. Its mix of extraordinary natural landscape and well-preserved cultural heritage soon won international recognition. In 2000, the Curonian Spit was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as a cultural landscape, in a joint nomination by Lithuania and Russia, which shares the southern half of the spit.
Within the protected spit, Juodkrantė found its place as the quiet alternative to better-known Nida. With fewer hotels and smaller crowds, it kept its calm atmosphere, its promenade of villas along the lagoon and its two gems. One is the Hill of Witches, now one of the best-loved attractions on the Lithuanian coast. The other is the impressive colony of grey herons and cormorants nesting in its pine woods, one of the largest in northern Europe. Neringa municipality manages the delicate balance between tourism and conservation, with strict rules and entry fees.
Today, Juodkrantė is a place for nature and calm within one of the most fragile and beautiful landscapes on the Baltic. You can walk its promenade, climb the Hill of Witches among the sculptures, watch thousands of birds wheel over the pines or cycle the spit's bike paths towards Nida. Along the way you glimpse an extraordinary story. This Curonian fishing village became a centre of the amber trade, an elegant German resort and a Soviet retreat. Today, at the heart of the spit, it looks after a natural and cultural treasure recognised by the whole world.
