"Drushininkai: easier to enjoy than to spell!" Druskininkai by CatherineReichardt

Druskininkai is perhaps Lithuania's best known spa town and has a pervasive air of privelege. Although we didn't have time to visit the spa or water park, we did have the chance to drive around town and admire the beautiful summer houses that were built to accommodate the rich and convalescent.

Druskininkai is located close to the current border with Poland and Belarus, and has a turbulent history, having been part of Lithuania, Poland and (briefly) Belarus in the past hundred years. During the early part of the 20th century, Druskininkai was a popular summer retreat for middle class tourists from Vilnius, Warsaw and Moscow, and after the Second World War, was hugely popular with tourists from the Soviet union who came to take the waters at the spa and associated sanatoria. It experienced a dip in popularity after the fall of the Soviet Union, but has had a resurgence in recent years due to the construction of a water park and other tourist attractions such as the off-the-wall Grutas sculpture park (see my travel tip).

If you're looking for a base in Southern Lithuania, you could do much worse than to consider Druskininkai. The town is well set up for tourism, so there's lots of accommodation, and once you've finished more active sightseeing and frolicking in the water park, you can also pamper yourself with time at the spas. Sounds like a good plan to me!