Italian View

In 1931, at a meeting of Rotary Club members in Munich, Thomas Mann gave a talk called "My Summer House". "Those places should be seen like Italy or Spain," the writer said. The "Italian View" is the landscape seen from the veranda of Thomas Mann's house – a unique view that, once seen, you will miss like a person close to your heart. A delicate young pine with a curved trunk, fishermen's houses below, the Curonian Lagoon opening up on the right and Bulvikis Cape in the distance – this motif of the Nida landscape, seen from Uošvė Hill in Skruzdynė, came to be called the "Italian View" by artists and photographers at the end of the 19th and in the first half of the 20th century. Although it is still not known exactly when and why the name stuck, this beloved motif of the Nida landscape was painted by many artists who worked here, including B. F. Behrendt, E. Wirth, W. Riemann, M. Pechstein, E. Mollenhauer and others. In 1930, when Thomas Mann built his summer house on Uošvė Hill, the "Italian View" began to be associated with the writer's name.