Palanga, Lithuania

Palanga is Lithuania's busiest beach resort, a town of roughly 17,000 residents on the Baltic Sea that swells to ten times its size each summer. A 470-metre pier, first built in 1882 and rebuilt in 1998, extends over the shallow water off the city beach. Inland stands the 1897 Tiškevičiai palace, which now holds the Amber Museum and its collection of fossil resin, including the 3.698-kilogram Sun Stone. Surrounding the estate, the 18-kilometre Botanical Park was laid out by French landscape architect Édouard André. The town's amber trade reaches back much further still.