Laistai Hillfort

If the Laistai Hillfort had to be described in one sentence, perhaps the most accurate would be that it is the most difficult to reach. Although it is situated next to the southern border of Klaipėda, to visit it, you need great determination to cross the railway if approaching from the northern side or to look for the most direct route through the gardens and fields if approaching from any of the other sides. So, visiting this hillfort is a test of endurance. And although the hillfort has quite a dense cover of deciduous trees, the result will not disappoint you. Its circular top site with a diameter of 40–42 metres on nearly all sides is surrounded by a 2.5-metre-high and 12-metre-wide bank with a 5-metre-high outer slope. Only on the western edge of the top site is there no bank, where a steep 10-metre-high slope descends to a marsh that lies below. On the outer side of the large bank, another two small banks with ditches between them were created, and further away, there was a sizeable foothill settlement occupying about 5 hectares and, within a 300-metre distance to the east, an old burial site dating back to the 8th–13th centuries. Both the burial site and the settlement have been researched numerous times, and various and clear remains of buildings and graves of the Curonian tribes that lived there have been discovered. However, the hillfort itself hasn’t been explored much by archaeologists so far – although at least five different layers were found in 1998 when filling up a hole that was dug arbitrarily in the larger bank of the hillfort. These layers testify to a much more complex and older history of the hillfort, going back to 1253, when the Laistai (Lassiten) castle stood there, which was part of the huge prehistoric complex of Žardė-Bandužiai archaeological monuments now covered by the territory of the city of Klaipėda, which defended and protected it from the southeast side.