For something off the beaten track, head to the home-museum of artist Eduardas Jonušas.

His life-defining years spent in Nida left a decisive heritage in the Curonian Spit. The dwindling elements of the way of life of the Curonians impacted the artist’s determination to preserve this tradition for future generations. He moved to Nida in 1971 and befriended the locals, whose unique culture was severely negated and threatened in postwar Lithuania. Jonušas spent over 30 years in the effort to strengthen and restore the Curonian heritage. His particular passion was collecting the most prominent Curonian cultural symbols like wind vanes, traditional tombstones, krikštas, sailboats and architectural ornaments of fishermen’s homesteads.

The artist’s fascination with the deep Curonian spirituality inspired a restoration project of the old Nida’s cemetery. He also was one of the first people to study the phenomenon of Curonian wind vanes. Together with painter Rimantas Dichavičius, Jonušas created a book of the study, which the oppressive government of the time banned from publishing.

Jonušas was also the first person to rebuild a traditional Curonian sailboat kurėnas, after Lithuania regained the independence from the Soviet Union, which he marked with the words: “This is my thank you to people who were born here, who were raised here, and who are at one with this land.”

The artist’s first sculptural work greets visitors entering Neringa - three sails with wind vanes. His heritage also lies in the revival of the work of Martynas Liudvikas Rėza: his sculpture to the great folklore enthusiast and influential Lithuanian literature publisher Rėza was built in 1975 near Pervalka, on the dune of Skirpstas. There are several other sculptures and murals by Jonušas around Neringa.

His many paintings feature Neringa’s landscape as well as his suffering in Soviet gulags. Jonušas is an honorary resident of Neringa. He was buried in Nida’s ethnographic cemetery in  2014. His house workshop was opened to the public in 2016.