Ecotour in Žemaitija National Park
ŽEMAITIJA National Park
Established: 1991 Area: 21903 ha Forest cover: 45 % Strict reserves occupy 4.8%; Reserves – 42.0%; Recreational zones – 1.9%.
Žemaitija National Park was established to protect:
Žemaitija national park
• Wooded and lake-covered natural complex, woody landscape structure with mashes of Plokstinė and Rukundziai, hydrographical complexes of Lake Plateliai, Laumalenka and Šilinė.
• Rare and endangered species of flora and fauna, archaeological and urban complexes of north Žemaitija with Mikytai, Pučkoriai, Gegrėnai, Pagardenis mounds and sacred places.
• Park of the Plateliai manor with the original homestead buildings, to preserve ethno-cultural value attributes of the Beržoras, Stirbaičių and Visvainių villages and other cultural heritage and monuments, to preserve Žemaitijos northwestern part of the watershed of the natural ecosystem stability, biota components and their diversity. On the eastern coast of Plateliai lake and in the peninsulas of Kreiviškiai and Auksalė there are fragments of old pines left.
• To restore destroyed and damaged natural, cultural complexes and objects; to carry out research and gather information of environmental protection, cultural heritage protection, natural resources.
The National Park has more than 200 cultural heritage and more than 30 archaeological monuments of the Stone Age camp traces of mounds, sacred places, grave- yards. The mounds of Užpelkiai, Gegrėnai, Pučkoriai, Šarnelė, Mikytai, the old sacred places of Visvainiai, Mikytai, Vilkai, the places of ancient settlements of Gegrėnai and Šarnelė are really interesting. More than 90 valuables of art are taken care of in the territory of the Park. They are Samogitian crosses, chapels, roofed crosses.
- Žemaitija National Park can be reached and explored by bus, car or bicycle. Most of the sites can be visited all year round. Accommodation, catering and educational activities must be arranged in advance.
Accommodation options:
- Rural tourism farmstead "Pas tėvukus". Ethnographic style spacious hospitable house on the shore of Lake Beržora
- Rural Tourism Farm "Prie Žiedelio" - The Rural Tourism Farm "Prie Žiedelio" is located in the Žemaitija National Park, in an isolated farmhouse, in a beautiful corner of nature, on the shore of Lake Žiedelis.
Catering options
Tasting of Žemaitija dishes "Paskanauk Žemaitijos"
- In the rural tourism homestead "Prie žiedelio" you can taste Žemaitija and enjoy authentic Žemaitija dishes prepared and presented by the homestead's hostess with songs and stories.
- Lunch at the "Plate lyn" snack bar - this snack bar is a long-standing idea of a mother and daughter of local residents, who put all their warmth and care into this place. They welcome all their customers with delicious food and a smile.
ON THIS TOUR, WE PROPOSE TO VISIT THE FOLLOWING NATURAL AND CULTURAL SITES IN TWO DAYS:
DAY I
Regina and Justinas Jonušai Museum of Folk Art and Ethnography
The museum has a rich and varied collection of wood carvings, paintings and iron crosses made by the owners themselves and other craftsmen in the area. The exposition also includes sculptures by the famous Samogitian folk artist, woodcarver Stanislovas Riauba. The cottage houses an exposition of ancient artefacts.
Bukantė Manorhouse
Bukantė Manor is a typical wooden manor house of folk architecture in Plungė district, formerly the manor farm of Šateikiai manor. Bukantė was made famous by the classic of Lithuanian literature Žemaitė, who was born there. Now it is hosted by the Plungė Museum, which in recent years has revived the manor house and its interior, restored two outbuildings and installed new attractive exhibitions. This manor offers also a gastronomic experience.
Lake Plateliai
Lake Plateliai is the largest and deepest lake in Žemaitija, with natural, cultural and landscape value. The deepest point is about 48.5 m. 17 small streams flow into the lake, and the river Babrungas flows out.
Lake Plateliai is also distinguished by its special cultural heritage. A wooden bridge connected it to the Šventorkalnis peninsula. The surviving 16th-century bridge piers, Castle Island and the Šventorkalnis peninsula with the Plateliai manor house have been declared cultural heritage sites.
The legend of the lake, which is known to everyone in Plateliai, says that there was never a lake in the present location. People used to mow the meadows on its present site. A huge dark cloud moved in from the north-west, from Notėnai, and settled on the meadows. For three days it roared, rustled, rumbled, and descended lower and lower as it grew darker. People hurriedly finished their haying, and the cloud began to rain heavily - it was pouring... One old woman wondered aloud: "Kāp platē lėij! Kāp platē lėij!" With those words, the cloud floated into the meadows - and thus Lake Plateliai was born. There are 7 islands in the lake: Pilies, Veršiai, Pliksale, Briedsale, Ubagsale, Gaidsale and Šončelis. All the islands of the lake, the Kreiviškės and Auksalė peninsulas are state-protected natural heritage sites.
Siberia Observation Tower
It is built on Silver Hill, surrounded on three sides by the Siberian Marsh and the Kunig River. The lookout tower is 15 m high. The lookout tower provides an overview of the area around Plateliai and Beržoras on a hill 165.7 m high (above sea level). The site was once covered by the sea, later by impenetrable forests, and even earlier by a giant glacier. The glacier has created this landscape. As the glacier melted, shifted and froze again, it formed the uplands and hollows that are now wetlands. Lake Plateliai was formed where the thick ice sheet lay for the longest time.
Liepijai walking track
The Liepijai Landscape Reserve, covering 278.3 hectares, is located on the Plateliai plateau's western edge. Dominated by the Liepijai Forest, it consists of native and cultivated stands, with over 98% designated for ecosystem protection. The reserve is home to Žemaitija National Park's largest community of broad-leaved lime trees and is rich in beetle species, including several rare ones. Forestry activities have been restricted since 2007 to protect four European Community habitats. A 4 km natural hiking trail winds through the forest, featuring information boards highlighting the area's unique features.
The Birškus beech tree
The Birškus beech tree grows in the parish of Beržoras. It is an impressive-looking beech with a trunk girth of 2.90 m at a height of 1.3 m and a height of 20 m. There are very few trees in our region that are so thick and produce fruits - three-edged nuts. The beech is more than 100 years old. It was planted by a local resident called Birškus. The beech is an introduced tree that does not grow naturally in Lithuanian forests.
Sacred complex of Beržoras
Beržoras is an old street village dating back to the 15th century, a state-protected cultural property. The village has preserved its traditional landscape and is interesting for its sacral architecture.
There are two major cultural religious sites here - the complex of buildings of the Church of St Stanislaus - the Church of St Stanislaus, the bell tower and the chapel - and the 14 chapels of the Stations of the cross. It is said that a shepherd saw a painting of the Virgin Mary on the top of a tree. The priests took it away and took it to the church in Plateliai, but the painting disappeared and reappeared in the same place in the tree, so, according to legend, they decided to build a new church there, where the painting would hang.
The first building of the complex was erected no later than the 18th century, although the exact date is not known. It was a wooden St. John Nepomuk's chapel. Eventually, it could no longer accommodate all the faithful of the village, so a larger church was built in 1746 and given the title of St. Stanislaus. The church has folk architectural features, it is wooden, with cruciform forms. The main altar, of which there are 4, is in the Baroque style. The churchyard contains the old cemetery of the parish of Plateliai. It is one of the oldest cemeteries in Lithuania.
DAY II
Plateliai Manor House Traditional Crafts Centre
The history of the Plateliai Manor House in its present location dates back to the 17th century. The park and several outbuildings of the manor have been preserved: a stable (the exhibition of the traditional carnival masks), a barn (the exhibition of the Žemaitija National Park), a bullfry (the Plateliai Cultural Centre), a root cellar (the Centre for Traditional Handicrafts), and the servants' house (a private object). Some of the buildings have been restored and adapted for public use.
The Traditional Crafts Centre is located in the former vegetable cellar of Plateliai Manor.
The two-storey building with an attic, which can accommodate up to 80 people, offers a wide range of educational activities in the field of traditional crafts, learning about ethno-cultural customs and rituals, and tasting culinary heritage. The basement and the ground floor are equipped with 5 rooms for educational activities: a crafts training room, a kitchen for culinary heritage, a weaving room and a carpentry workshop.
Traditional crafts such as weaving, carving, blacksmithing, cross-crafting, Easter egg printing, knitting, cooking, plaiting, weaving, sewing, embroidery, spinning, woollen, needlework, candle-making, herbalism, are developed here.
The Centre brings together 13 certified traditional craftspeople, 5 of whom are certified masters of traditional crafts.
The Witch's Ash
The Witch's Ash is one of the most valuable natural monuments in Žemaitija National Park. It is the thickest ash tree in Lithuania, with a trunk girth of 7.30 m, a height of about 32 m and a crown area of about 100 square metres. The witch ash grows in the park of Plateliai Manor Farm.
There is a beautiful legend about the Witch's Ash. There was an incident when a village woman was walking home late at night and was led astray by a witch. The woman was wandering around the estate park, imagining that there was an unfamiliar forest. She wandered until she was tired. Then she sat down by an ash tree to rest and fell asleep. The Witch grabbed a loaf of bread from the tree and was about to bite it when the roosters crowed... The Witch, angry, struck the loaf of bread against the tree, which turned into a gum tree... And the tree was called the Witch's Ash by people.
Šeirė Cognitive Trail
The 4.1 km long hiking trail in the Plateliai Landscape Reserve offers a view of the typical terrain of the area, the Šeirė Forest, Gaudupis Swamp, Piktežeris, Plateliai Lake, common and rare species of plants, mushrooms, and animals, as well as the infrastructure to help you get to know your surroundings through sight, smell, hearing, touch, movement, and thinking. The 1.4 km accessible for people with reduced mobility is 1.3 km from the Žemaitija National Park Authority Visitor Centre in Plateliai. Part of the trail (1.8 km) coincides with the cycle path around Lake Plateliai.
The trail is signposted, there is an information stand at the beginning and the surface is hard ground. The trail's distinctive features: active nature exploration, Gaudupis swamp, Piktežeris, the shore of Lake Plateliai.
Plateliai Lake Observation Point
The observation point is located on the north-eastern edge of Plateliai, near the yacht club. From the observation deck, you can see the beauty of Lake Plateliai, famous for its islands (Pilies, Veršiai islands), peninsulas (Šventorkalnis) and the dark forests of Plokštinė.
The site is accessible to people with mobility and visual impairments. There are benches, bicycle racks, a ramp and eight information boards telling the legends of Lake Plateliai and its islands. A tactile stand with Braille has also been built, which is adapted for people with visual impairments and helps the person touching it to get an overview of the lake.
Energy Labyrinths and Geometric Shapes Park
This park has four labyrinths, three domes, a merkaba and a mandala created on the ground. Labyrinths have existed since 4000 years ago and can be found in almost every major religious tradition around the world. Like the pyramids, the labyrinths are made of geometric shapes that create a sacred space. Energy labyrinths have only one pathway leading to the centre and back again. When a person changes the direction of walking, his perception also changes from the right hemisphere of the brain to the left. This is one of the reasons why the labyrinth can stimulate perceptual, sensory and awareness receptivity.
Žemaičių Kalvarija
In the 17th century, Bishop Jurgis Tiškevičius established the first Way of the Passion of Christ in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with 19 chapels, built a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and entrusted it all to the Dominican monks. The traditions of the annual pilgrimage to the indulgences (called the Great Kalvarija) on the first ten days of July and the ceremonial customs of the Žemaičių Kalvarija hills soon developed. The Catholic shrine became famous and the town took on the name of Kalvarija.
One of the activities is an excursion to Žemaičių Kalvarija.
Gegrėnai Hillforts Trail
The hillforts are sources of early history, a distinctive legacy of the Curonian and Samogitian tribes of this region. This 1.6 km long hiking trail is located 14 km from the Žemaitija National Park Directorate Visitor Centre in Plateliai. It contains two hillforts, two burial sites and an ancient settlement. The steep slopes of the mounds, which are up to 15 m high, and the considerable difference in height between the hilltops and the valleys, create a very distinctive relief and panoramic spaces.
Honey Barn
Donatas Abrutis' beekeeping farm "Honey Barn" offers bee services such as beehive therapy and tasting of bee products.Beehive therapy is an opportunity to experience the effects of the sounds, smells and vibration field of the beehive in the bee house.
During the tasting, you can taste different types and flavours of honey, bee bread, pollen, other bee products and beverages, learn about their benefits, and enjoy local herbal tea and home-made cottage cheese. This is a sweet and healthy break when travelling around Žemaitija National Park, during seminars, meetings or other events.
