Klaipėda, Lithuania

Klaipėda is Lithuania's only seaport and its third-largest city, with a population of roughly 150,000 on the shore of the Curonian Lagoon. Founded in 1252 by the Livonian Order under the name Memel, it ranks as the oldest city in Lithuania and has shifted between German and Lithuanian rule several times across the centuries. The Old Town centers on a grid of narrow half-timbered Fachwerk houses, with Theatre Square holding the Annie of Tharau fountain, first installed in 1912 and recreated in 1989. From the harbor, ferries cross the lagoon to the Curonian Spit, a UNESCO-listed 98-kilometre sand dune peninsula. The route opens onto a landscape that has been shaping itself, grain by grain, for thousands of years.