I reached Lithuania on an easy overnight ferry ride over the Baltic Sea from Kiel and explored its beautiful baroque capital Vilnius on a balmy late summer evening. As a passionate country collector I of course particularly enjoyed Užupis, a neighbourhood, full of artists and intellectuals which declared “independence” on 1 April 1997. Just like any other country, Užupis has a border crossing, its own currency, government, anthem and constitution. I liked paragraph 5: Every human has the right to be unique.

In terms of natural beauty, for me, the Curonian Spit which Lithuania shares with Russia, is unique. Königsberg, Kurische Nehrung, Nidden, Memel…names of places, not known anymore. In her book „Namen, die keiner mehr nennt“ the late German author Marion Gräfin Dönhöff contributed to mentally prepare Germans for the new (and successful!) Ostpolitik of former chancellor Willy Brandt. She wrote about her childhood in Ostpreußen, East Prussia, which  used to be one of then Germany’s most beautiful landscapes. War and the fall behind the Iron Curtain time-wrapped it a bit. When I visit the magical sliver of the Curonian Spit I still feel as time would have stood still. There are still tree-studded avenues with cobblestones, front gardens with sunflowers and forlorn lakes under a Big Sky,. Deep in the dark forest of land between the Baltic Sea and the Curonian lagoon I am caught off guard by two colossal elks.