Day 7: From Rīga (Latvia) into Lithuania

After brekky we take a quick walk to the area out of the Old Town across the City Canal to the market. Things are just being set up.

So many strawberries!


The minibus arrives with Alius from Lithuania - much more squashy compared to the big bus we have travelled in up until now. Alius is very chatty compared to Vaidas; he sounds like a proud Lithuanian who has strong political views and is very pragmatic regarding his Russian neighbours.

It is a long transfer today to Palanga (290 kms).

About an hour later we cross the border into Lithuania. Alius drives like ‘a bat out of hell’. We are doing 130 km/hr! Hmmmmm, I thought he had lots of friends ... but he wasn’t waving, he was gesturing to other vehicles to turn their headlights on (compulsory here).

Stopped at the Hill of Crosses (Kryziu Kalnas), a Christian pilgrimage site, which is a collection of over 200,000 wooden crosses erected on a small hill in Šiauliai in Northern Lithuania. The crosses are thought to have first started appearing after the 1831 uprising against Russian ruling. Relatives, with no bodies to bury, erected crosses and crucifixes on the hill. The hill was bulldozed twice during a later Russian occupation as religion was forbidden but Lithuanians continued to sneak to the hill and plant the crosses despite KGB agents patrolling the area. When Lithuania obtained its independence in 1991 the hill came to signify identify, religion and heritage for Lithuanians. Lots of tourists.

Genocide memorial Jews  ??? At Druskininkai ???
We pass the sign on the road. I ask Alius about this but suddenly his English dries up ... 5 minutes later he started to talk but he can’t bring himself to use the word ‘Jew’; he calls them people who were doctors, business people (that is, the stereotypical view of them: greedy people, successful with money). It is interesting this because in the book I read before coming here, Darkness and Company, Sigitas Parulskis writes about the Holocaust and Lithuania’s responsibility in the years between 1941 and 1944, under the occupying Nazi regime, when roughly 196,000 of the Jews living in Lithuania – that is, 95 per cent of the Lithuanian Jewish population – were annihilated. Although the Holocaust was conceived, initiated and organized by the Nazis, several thousand local inhabitants, mostly ethnic Lithuanians, were involved in implementing the mass killings.

Well, Palanga was interesting. First we got told off (nicely but firmly) by a local policeman for riding down the main boulevard (J. Basanavičius - don’t you just love the name?!; goodness knows how you pronounce that!). I asked at the local tourist office what this sign meant and the young man explained that a red circle around the outside of the sign basically means ‘no’. I never did work out the second one??!!


The clouds were coming in so we headed for the pier at the beach where there were heaps of cafes, some right ON the beach, and where heaps of people were enjoying the sand and the water. The pier leads out 470 m into the Baltic Sea.


Palanga is a popular Lithuanian sea resort, just 25 km north from Klaipeda, boasting beautiful kilometres-long white sand beaches, backed by dunes and pine woods. We cycle through these along wooden paths and back to the main track (the town is well-endowed with bikes lanes and tracks) and head to Klaipėda.

It is a gorgeous ride through the Seaside Regional Park: there were tracks heading off to the sea; a lake teeming with birds where we sheltered from a shower of rain at the bird hide (the insect repellent we bought at Mustvee came in handy!); and wondrously ethereal pine forests.


Cycling on when we got a break in the weather, we pulled up again in timely fashion at a bus stop when the next shower hit - and there was one of those worldwide little free book exchange libraries here - in the bus stop! We came across another one later as we went through a park in Klaipėda.


It is a lovely ride through the Giruliai Forest with walking and cycling tracks intertwining keeping the two separate in places so we ‘hooned’ along on the sealed tracks comfortable that we were not going to pester any walkers. The rain had been short-lived so there were plenty of people out and about. There was an old very large stadium as we came into town; from here it required some considerable navigation to get to our destination. MF’s Sygic app did a great job.

In Klaipėda, we encounter lots of Soviet era-style, big ugly block buildings until we came to the waterfront.

Klaipėda is a port city in Lithuania (and the 3rd largest city), where the Baltic Sea meets the Danė River. The old town features German-style, 18th-century wood-framed buildings. Theatre Square, the city’s main gathering spot, is home to the neoclassical Drama Theatre. The port was controlled by successive German states until the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. As a result of the 1923 Klaipėda Revolt it was annexed by Lithuania and has remained with Lithuania to this day, except for the period between 1939 and 1945 when it returned to Germany.

We have a hotel right on the water - our room has a sensational view. We head off into the Old Town for dinner as there is a restaurant there in Theatre Square that does traditional Latvian food, Etno Dvaras.

Dinner was amazing and we were as full as ticks (which reminds me, we passed a sign in the forest warning of ticks which makes us a bit anxious - thank heavens for bike helmets!). MF has Baked Sausage Ring (Kepta Dešros Ringė) and I have Duck Breast (Anties Krūtinėlė) and we shared the most delicious raspberry icecream with nuts and Belgian chocolate. AND we had as starters mushroom soup in a bread case for MF and I had the traditional meat-stuffed potato dumplings with sour cream (Apkepti). Yummy. Really should have stopped there! All accompanied by local beers for MF and Chilean carmenere for me and a hot wine (karštas žiemos vynas). AND traditional acorn coffee (tradicinė gilių kava) - which was somewhat underwhelming.


We had to walk after dinner! Oh my feet! But such a full stomach.

Nevertheless, the upside was a lovely walk through the Old Town then along the waterfront where there were lots of restaurants. It’s a pretty place. There is a lovely sunset down at what is known as the Old Ferry Port where we will take the boat in the morning across to the Curonian Spit.

Cycle: 38.5 kms

Steps: 12795