Over a hundred lakes
Linked by channels and rivers, with paddling between them the best-known activity.
Wojsyl — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Scotch Mist — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Scotch Mist — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Scotch Mist — CC BY-SA 4.0
Lithuania's first national park, created in 1974 in the northeast of the country, an area of forest and lakes covering some forty thousand hectares. What distinguishes it is the water: more than a hundred lakes linked by channels and small rivers, ringed by dense pine forest. That makes it a region visited by boat as much as on foot — paddling between the lakes is its best-known activity. Alongside the nature are preserved traditional wooden villages, with houses, barns and steam baths built of timber in the old Lithuanian manner, some still inhabited. These are not museum villages but places people live in. The park also holds a small beekeeping museum, an old Lithuanian tradition with its own rites and symbols. It is not in Vilnius: about a hundred kilometres northeast, needing a car or a train to Ignalina then local transport. Count on a full day at minimum, and an overnight is better. Emphatically seasonal: summer for paddling and walking, and the winter is harsh with short days.
Linked by channels and rivers, with paddling between them the best-known activity.
Traditional houses, barns and steam baths — not museum villages.
An old Lithuanian tradition with its own rites and symbols.
Northeast Lithuania, about 100 km from Vilnius
By train from Vilnius to Ignalina — about an hour and a half — then local transport, a hired bicycle or a taxi into the park. The park is large with long internal distances, so without a car you will be confined to one area. Staying at a guesthouse inside the park solves that.
Paddling between the lakes without competition: boats are hired locally, the water routes are marked, and seeing the region from the water is entirely different from seeing it from a road. Beyond that, forest walking, climbing the hills overlooking the lakes, and visiting the wooden villages.
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