Dzūkija

Dzūkija, established in 1991, is Lithuania's largest national park and its great pine country: a sandy plain of inland dunes fixed by centuries of Scots pine, cut by the clear Ūla and the wider Merkys on their way to the Nemunas. The sand dictates everything — poor fields, rich forest, and a lichen-floored openness underfoot that makes the woods feel swept.

Dzūkai culture grew to fit it. The proverb says people here are raised by the forest, and the villages inside the park — Zervynos and Musteika chief among them, street villages of unpainted timber — still run on mushrooms and berries; in a good bolete autumn the forest verges fill with bent backs and buckets. On the park's southern edge lies Čepkeliai, Lithuania's largest raised bog, a strict reserve whose rim boardwalk is entered from Marcinkonys.

What's worth knowing before you go

Marcinkonys and Merkinė hold the visitor centres and mark the park's two moods: forest-village heartland and Nemunas-bend history (Merkinė's castle mound stares down the river confluence). Canoeing the Ūla is the signature trip — a narrow, springs-fed river winding under sand bluffs, with the Ūlos akis spring "eye" upstream; permits are limited in the strictest stretch, so book ahead.

Cyclists do well here: marked forest roads link the villages on packed sand. Come in September for the mushroom carnival, or early summer for empty rivers; either way, carry water — the sand drinks everything.