Nida Lighthouse (Urbas Hill)

The first lighthouse in Nida went up in the early 1870s. The hexagonal red-brick tower was built at the same time as the 51.4-metre Urbas Hill was being planted with greenery. The lighthouse began operating on 24 October 1874. It was reached by a stone-paved path with 200 steps, which survive to this day. The old Nida lighthouse was fitted with a Fresnel lens light apparatus whose burner ran on mineral oil. Every ten seconds it sent out a 4-second flash, visible 21 nautical miles out at sea. The first Nida lighthouse operated until the end of the Second World War, when retreating German soldiers blew it up. But as early as 1945 the lighthouse was rebuilt, and in 1953 it was reconstructed. Lighthouses all over the world differ in shape, colour and the signals they send, so you will not find another one like Nida's. The current reinforced-concrete cylindrical navigation tower, painted in red and white stripes, operates automatically and sends signals to sailors in agreed codes during the hours of darkness. At the end of 2016 three large LED lamps were installed in the lighthouse: two send flashing light signals towards the sea and a smaller one towards the lagoon. The new lamps shine a bright white light, which makes it easy to tell apart from the yellowish light of other objects. Nida lighthouse has its own characteristic flash pattern: two short 0.2-second flashes 1.2 seconds apart, followed by a 4.2-second interval (darkness), with a total light-and-dark cycle of 5.8 seconds. The lighthouse sends light signals only during the hours of darkness: the lamp switches on automatically at dusk and off at dawn. The lighthouse has its own independent power station, so the light keeps shining even if the power supply is cut. Although this guiding light has been through many troubled times, the nearly thirty-metre lighthouse has been cutting through the night sky for almost 150 years, and its white light signals can be seen at sea from a little over 40 kilometres, or 22 nautical miles, away. In 1991 Nida lighthouse was given the symbolic name of St Peter, who is said to have been a fisherman.