Day 4 - reaching Nida and the end of the bike trip

With a limited access to internet, firstly I'm writing this post in my paper notebook while sitting on the Parnidis Dune. It's strange to be so atop and to feel such serenity. I was expecting much more wind. You get to see a strange landscape from here: sand, pines, and some plain grass. Yet all of them combine their layers of color into a landscape, that breathe the tranquility.
600 meters from here is my tent parked for tonight. But I cannot see it. I can see a totally different world down below, as if I was sitting on a cloud.
It's really hard to talk about these 114 kilometers I made today. I really managed to get up earlier today, and even leave the camp. But I spent half an hour at Ventės Ragas - saying my good-bye to the mall and to the lighthouse.
The weather was perfect, there were very few times when I had to ride against the wind. I refilled my rations at the local village shop, where I was serviced in soviet style: no smile, no eye contact and no "good bye". I could choose from two roads to reach Klaipėda: a shorter and a longer (but supposedly better). I didn't want to make extra kilometers today, for that reason I turned to the road that lead to forest. There I experienced real offroad riding: the path was so undulated, that I could feel my arms tissues dangling. Despite all that extreme experience, I got to see "Nidos Nafta" oil well, Svencelė kite and wake spot. From there the offroad turned into a proper one, but route markings in reality started to differ from those in the map. Not wanting to end up on offroad again, I chose a longer route through Priekulė. For the extra kilometers I had to make, I found a local bakery and bought some buns: I ate one on my way to Nida, and another as soon as I got there. In Priekulė bike route markings suggested not to take the car route for getting out of the town, and I followed them. And there again I felt sorry for my decision - I ended up on another offroad which was going in parallel with the normal road. There I easily got tired of following sandy up and down paths, and I returned closer to the civilization (that is to the cars) - Šilutės Road. The roadside was not impressive, but there were two lanes going the same direction, so, I bravely took my position on the road next to far far cousins of my bike - cars. On the fourth day, I was more comfortable in riding next to them, than doing it alone on some unknown village road.
My initial plan was to arrive to camping site next to Klaipėda. But yesterday's achievement inspired me to go for Nida on the same day. So, as soon as I was in Klaipėda, I turned straight to ferry site, and when I arrived there, the ferry was about to leave. I made it on time to avoid waiting another half an hour. So, there was no time to think whether to stay in Klaipėda or to go to Nida, I just had to go.
I got across to the Curonian Spit with seagulls gliding next to ferry, the birds was the most impressive part - though they were paying attention to people only because they expected to get something in return.
The road path there first seemed rather disappointing - it was sort of two(for each direction) very narrow lanes of concrete with a rather deep gap between. The gap was not like abyss, but still going at a great speed I wouldn't have wanted my bike wheel to slip there. Luckily, maybe the first kilometer was like that, soon the situation with the quality of the paths improved. Only the pine cones and some sand were making the ride a little bit more dangerous. Most of the time, the path was going through the pine woods, so, at the speed of 25 km/h the lungs were airing rather well. I was doing breaks, but tried to limit those - it is illegal to camp anywhere in the Curonian Spit. And I realized there would be rather a lot of those wanting to stay at the Nida's camping site (for a rather decent price compared to other accommodation options there). The later I get, the worse place I get to tent(and I was right, the area for those coming just with tent (and bike) was quite small, and it felt rather already crowded - no sign of luxury for privacy I got at Šilinė's "Medaus Slėnis" - my first camping site in this trip.
Hey, but who cares where your tent is placed, and whether there is a neighbor 1 meter or 30 meters away? If you get to see places like this, all the details doesn't matter that much:

a view from Parnidis Dune

As I saved one day of travelling, I could stay in Nida for one more day. But the whether forecast was not merciful. After doing an early (7 AM) morning tour around the town, I decided to pack. It was a good decision - I borded the boat with the first heavy drops of rain leaving the town with a threatening cloud over it.

Pushing my limits with Lithuanian Summer - or Bike trip Day 3rd

I made a progress by getting up earlier, but no progress on getting out on the road is seen. Leaving home is always difficult, whether it's your own or your parents home. But today the time was wasted effectively: by eating pancakes with raspberry jam and doing technical service on my bike. I got my tires properly inflated, the seat was raised to the correct position, and all my baggage re-arranged, so, it would be easier for me to keep balance. Can you believe it, I had everything set up wrongly until today? And all this time wasted there really paid off  - I was riding more effectively, although I set out at 11 am only.
There is a nice bike lane from Tauragė towards Mikytai (and Russian Border), that lasts about 10 kilometers, but the landscape is awful: all ups and downs, like in a roller-coaster, but if you ride a bike there, there is no fun in that! Especially with the wind blowing in front of you and 5 percent steepness hills. No wonder, there are so many wind power plants there.
At the beginning of the road, I got few drops of the rain, but I outran them. 28 kilometers to Mikytai was like constantly fighting either the wind or the hills.
But once I turned to Pagėgiai, the situation got a lot better. There were a lot more woods, the wind was blowing from the side, and there were no more hills. But as some things improved, some got worse. Remember that cloud, I thought I ran away from? Well, it caught me up(or its brother). And really badly. 8 kilometers before I reached Šilutė, I had to hide under the tree. I had only one rain coat, so, I chose to rescue my sleeping bag and tent instead of myself (now you probably laugh from my decision to leave my waterproof clothes at home).
Šilutė was my initial goal for today, but this town is not as close to the water, as I wanted it to be (it's not the rain I'm talking about!), and I didn't knew of any good camping sites there. And although my back was aching, I decided to go further: maybe to Mingė, or Kintai. That's roughly 16 additional kilometers in pouring rain. But by that time I got another yellow rain coat while in Šilutė, so, it was not so bad. And eventually the rain stopped, only the wind got worse (because I was riding next to Nemunas delta all the time).
As I kept approaching my undecided resting place, I kept thinking, that I should go to Ventės Ragas, I was sure there was a camping site there, and because the rain has stopped, it was really easy to convince myself in doing that:)

view from my tent

Here I am sitting in my tent 100 meters away from the Curonian Lagoon with a view to a beautiful sunset. After eating at expensive restaurant (hey, today I deserve it!) and visiting the bird ringing station, and lighthouse, ant the mall, I feel proud of myself - because of those 99 kilometers I made today.

Bike trip - day 2

I almost forgot that today that today is  Saturday - all alarm clock's on my phone were switched off. I overslept. Well getting up at a quarter to 9 on normal weekend mode wouldn't be considered as oversleeping. But I wanted to get up and start on the road early.
Half of the night I felt something wet or cold at the end of the sleeping bag. I didn't hear it raining, so, it felt a little bit strange. It turned out to be a dew from trees, as I parked my tent under them. But mostly I was disapointed with a quality the tent - what if a heavy rain stumbled upon me, would I have drowned in my tent? At least it didn't weigh too much, so, if the weather stays that sunny and warm, I should survive.
Morning packing, breakfast, small talk with fellow travellers, refilling water supplies - and I was on the road a little bit after 10 (sense a pattern there?). Same old road, same old mates to share it with, that is cars and trucks. I didn't meet any tractor or horse on the road.
First few kilometers and I'm in Skirsnemunė. I've heard it had a beautfiul neo-gothic church of St. George (as it turned out, it has a website as well!). I wasn't too much tired yet, so, I decided to take a look at it. And it didn't seem very up the hill. Riding through the small town of Skirsnemunė, I counted one school, two churches and two graveyards. It still turned out that the church of St. George stand on a small hill - I lost my courage to ride that hill, so, I walked my bike there.

After few kilometers behind Skirsnemunė I saw a sign of bike road towards Jurbarkas. That was the best bike road so far in this trip. A river on the left, I could have swimmed in it, if I wanted, I forest on the right. The quality of road - excellent, and it stayed that way right up to Jurbarkas. There I had my lunch of crepe wtih curd and bananas and vanilla milkshake - all prepared freshly in a food truck just in front of coach station while sitting on a bean bag. To get out of Jurbarkas wasn't hard, I drove many times through there with a car. At the end I found a bike lane, which to my disapointment stopped with a town sign. You just can't get out of town with a bike!

At the bus stop of crossroad which takes me to my hometown - another break: some excercises. From there I could keep a better speed, Even with rests at the bus stops and eating some wild berries! I noticed that I wasn't getting tired that much by treading more intensivelly, as I was getting tired from sitting on bike, so, if I could ride faster, my back could suffer less and would have more time to rerst. Once a saw a sign saying that it's only 12km left to Tauragė, I was like on the wings of wind, sometimes reaching 33km/h speed, and keeping it always above 20 km/h. I was highly motivated to reach it as soon as possible - I knew of royal conditions camping site there - my parents house: with bubble bath, home food, real bed and my niece. I was there by 3 o'clock completing 58 kilometers of todays route.

Bike trip to the sea - day 1

Me and my bike are doing fine. So far.
I'll start from yesterday. A week ago while sleeping for two nights in a tent, I got an idea that I could spend  my holiday by going somewhere with a bike. My vacation time was only 7 days, so, not very far I could go within that time. With limited options I turned my eyes to the west of the Lithuania. Why not to go there? Yes, I can go there with a car in 3 hours most. But that's not very interesting, and not challenging at all. A little bit inspired by my couchsurfing guests, that travel around the world or around the Baltic Sea by hitch-hiking or by bike, I wanted to do a little odyssey of my own. After last weekend I knew I could sleep in a tent, survive without shower for two days in a row. What if it was more? Or what if it was challenging in other ways? Shared my initial thoughts with the friends  I spent my last weekend, I was encouraged to do this. It seemed doable, at least until I didn't dig into details of this vacation. First I was planning it in my head, then some serious planning had to be done - pimping the bike to survive the amount of kilometers it never has done in it's life!
On a day I had to leave - Friday (that is yesterday), I thought I had everything planned and packed. Guess what, the journey started by getting rid of some stuff. The bike with all the things I thought I needed was standing. But once I tried to ride it, it started to wobble dangerously to the sides. At that point I decided I didn't need a tripod for my camera. I could take pictures without it, and it weighed more than my tent! The bike was still wobbling... With an aching heart I took off my camera bag - I could still take pictures with my phone! That way many more things stayed at home - tourist mat(it was warm outside1!) and waterproof clothing set (I was hoping for no rain and knocking the tree at the same time), a thermos with hot water. The back of the bike was still heavy, still wobbling, but it  was definitelly more stable.
I wanted to leave as early as possible, but my unconsciousness, knowing for the uncertainty that was awaiting, always found something to postpone that moment. So, I left my home a little bit after 10 o'clock. I met my neighbour on my way, he just shaked his head and wished me good luck.
First obstacle - to descend a steep hill that was next to my home. It was not only steep, the road was turning very sharply. I always walked my bicycle down the hill, I never rode it. I didn't dear to do that with a heay bike back this time too.
To get out of Kaunas was not hard. There is a bicycle route that starts 1 kilometer from my house. In theory it should have taken me straight me to Kulautuva. But in reality, I lost some part of it, so, I just followed the normal route I would have taken if I went by car. But only staying the most right side of the road.
The bike trembles from the passing by trucks, I just hold on to my steering wheel more tightly. The first challenge - Raudondvaris. I do not even try to ride that  hill up. I walk my bike with dignity up the hill. I meet few locals with bottles of beer, but it's not even 12 o'clock!
Lot's of trucks! Those who are passing me in my direction, just tremble my bike. Those which are coming from opposite direction, they give me an extra wind gust, that I can barely tread the bike.
At the gas station just before Vilkija. I find a chai latte drink. What a sweet reward! I drink it devouringly and again on the road. And right there is another descend from the hill. It's steep, it's curving, but not so badly. I keep my hands on the break handles all the time. And the view is stunning, too bad I have to keep my eyes on the road. And I reach Vilkija - there I eat my lunch watching the ferry in action. The park there is really nice, but small.
After leaving Vilkija, I find a bike lane, but it doesn't last for two long - I have to get back on the road and pretend I have the same rights as cars and trucks. And it works, they outstrip me by riding in the opposite traffic lane, though I try to stay to the right side as close as possible. At least there are a lot less trucks. And it would be quite a good road: beautyfull green landscape, good quality of asphalt, but the front wind is very stark. I barely can keep 10 kilometers per hour. I stop at bus stops, do excercises there(my back hurts really badly), I wish I could put my legs on the steering wheel, but how to tread then?
There aren't a lot of gas stations on this route. I enjoy every one I find. At Seredžius I find a new one and express my joy I eat a burger and drink a cup of cocoa. Drinking a cup of cocoa was a mistake, it's so hot outside, it's even hotter inside gas station. But I do like cocoa, and it gives me an extra buff of power to tread.
Here I start to notice one thing I haven't thought about - sun burn. Summers in Lithuania aren't usually of the kind that will make you worry about that thing if you are not lying on a beach. I didn't think that riding a bike is like lying on a beach. Well, only certain parts of your body are exposed to sun. In my case, my both hands and left leg.
10 kilometers to Raudonė. I start to see interesting objects on the right side, but all of them are on a steep hills. No thanks, I'll do my cultural trip next time. But now only short stops give me some strength. I see few bike roads on the way, but they are very short and usually not as smooth as the road, I try to stay away from them.
About 6 o'clock I reach Panemunė castle. The goal of the trip is not far way, I decide to look at the castle, at least to ride by it. Of course to get back the same way I went to the castle wouldn't be cool, so, I keep on riding through the village called Pilis (in English it means Castle, very original, I should say). After the village I almost took the wrong direction, but my sixth sense suggested me, I should turn back. And the end of the 6% slope I see a reference to my camping site. After paying 6 euros, I get a place for my tent, toilet, hot water shower and a socket to charge my phone.After a short fight with a chinese tent, I get my shower, I eat my dinner - I can say I have settled down with dignity. And I don't need anything more after such a long day - 77.5 kilometers with an average speed of 12 kilometers per hour (very slow:( ). Yesterday's distance was the longest of all the planned ones. It was hardest in a sense, that I didn't know what was waiting for me ahead. But when you know what is waiting for you, it doesn't  always get easier.

Me, I and my bike

When I first set my eyes on my bike, it caught my attention by it's orange tan skin of bicycle kind. It's been almost ten years of our relationship, when I bought him into my slavery after I received my first and last well-paid freelance job. But with the time the passion between us died out, only a few dates that were left every year...
I bought some presents to my bike yesterday. I gave to it - a bicycle computer, a backseat, a kick-stand and  holster for water bottle! I decorated it's wheel spokes with reflectors, mounted a back-seat bag, filled with my stuff. I hope to tell you more in 5 or 6 days in best case ( no worst case scenarios there!).

Northern Lithuanian skies, there is something about them

The north of Lithuania, district of Biržai, has greeted us with amazingly looking clouds and skies. After tenting our tent at the edge of the rye field, we dove into discussion about actualities and nuances of online writers society. Funny stories were replaced by stargazing at the clear sky without any light pollution. As we had enough of black and white sky-scapes, the evening itself didn't end up then. A last minute idea to visit the longest pedestrian bridge(500m!) in Lithuania and Astravas manor turned into reality. They are interesting objects by itself, but if you do sightseeing at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning - you'll see things in totally different shade.

a local shop

It's the same shop at night

 It was a little bit chill to walk over the bridge and take photographs, but our patience has rewarded us with some nice pictures. As we decided to head back to our tents, we met local fishermen going to their favorite fishing spots. All this time it never got totally dark, you could always see an edge of the sky, colored by sun.
But a late night walk didn't give us an excuse to sleep longer, so, we were up at 10 am. And we went for the same excursion, but this time in was in totally different light and we had a local guide.
At noon, more people came to this fantasy writers gathering, the food for the evening has been taken care of, and we could start with the activity everyone came there for - RPG game.  A game master was cruel, but a good storyteller at the same time. Therefore everyone was immersed into that other world very quickly and nothing could make us leave it. Of course, the rain has interrupted the game a few times - we had to patch a roof of a tent, then to relocate all the stuff to the terrace (as the tent couldn't hold the water anymore), then to go back to tent (as the rain stopped). Armed with laughter, raspberry and mint teas, or beer, we continued our journey in our fantasy world which turned out to be a good mass "hallucination". Oh, and in the end every character died - a mass hallucination turned into a mass grave.
But  what I liked most out of this weekend, was the fantastic sky. Whether it was clear, or cloudy, menacing us with heavy rain or beautifully fading into the night - I was a little bit hypnotized by it's beauty - all I could do is hold my camera and keep taking pictures.

Sunday in Sigulda

Travelling feels good. Even if you go away for one day.
I sure didn't get enough sleep last weekend. After sleeping just for 4 hours I woke up at 5 o'clock and started to get ready for the upcoming day - I with two of my colleagues decided to go to Sigulda for one day. And though it's just around 320 kilometers away from Kaunas, we wanted to make the most out of our day. So, leaving the home around 6 am was a must.
The idea for this trip wasn't very random. I hosted a girl from Daugavpils, which told me about vertical wind tunnel she took in Sigulda. I was fascinated by her story. I knew someone at work, who would be fascinated too by this experience. All I had to do - just to retell the same story with the same passion. Talking someone into it was easier than executing the idea. Vertical wind tunnel is extremely expensive sport, so, the limit of the time you get to fly there is the your bank account. Just to go there for few minutes and return back - didn't make much sense. Good for us, Sigulda is known for other attractions, such as bobsleigh track, Tarzan park, Gauja's river national park, and castles. Well, I wanted to add even more extreme to this trip and go there by hitch-hiking, but this idea, which seemed to be in motion for a some time, had to be stopped, and another one - to go there by car just for one day - was born.
We reached Aerodium - vertical wind tunnel sight just before noon to be lucky enough to make into the first group. Sigulda is much more farther away than 320 kilometers - there are a lot of road construction on the way, so, the trip extends a lot. And you have to make coffee/cacao breaks, have pick-nicks on the grass behind gas station.
We were there, got talked into taking 4 minutes of flight(which was the best decision for that day!), attended instruction workshops, put on the gear, made warm-ups, plugged our ears and ... nobody wanted to be first to start(or didn't show much initiative in starting), so I got to be the test rabbit. Not seeing how others were doing before me, made me nervous a little bit and it wasn't helping me to relax. So, yes, after first two minutes, I wasn't thrilled that much. But then the last two minutes totally paid off. I got to fly a lot higher, do the turn really fast. All right, it was with a help of instructor, but it really felt good anyway.

Behind this sign is a wind turbine which lifts you in the air

Next stop - bobsleigh track. A little bit disappointing - a one minute ride for 10 euros for each person. I guess we were comparing the this excitement with the one we had before, and it just didn't feel that good. Maybe, in winter it's different, but it's a lot more expensive in winter.
After this unimpressive ride it was time to get more strength - by eating sandwiches and drinking tea on a beautiful lawn near Gauja's river. We were expecting for a lot worse weather, but it just was windy and the rain stayed away from us. I guess, three mean people coming from a land of rain is a scary thing:)

We had a lunch looking at this nice view. Almost a pick-nick in the sky! 

Gauja river

We descended the hill by chair lift or by toboggan track and took a catapult challenge. Actually, I was the first to try it out (you notice the pattern?:) ) and others followed by me. I guess, not all of them felt so exciting, as I did - it's like a demo version of bungee jumping, with few changes: you don't have to make a decision when to step of, you are not going head down(ok, some managed to do a salto, or something similar), and you get a few swings only(4 or so). But it's enough to get a daily adrenaline dose. All this and many more outdoor activities can found at the Tarzans rope/climbing park.
I guess, that adrenaline made us decide to go up the hill by foot. Some party members were not happy about that (but only realized their mistake halfway the hill)!
From the things we wanted to experience only one was left - cable cart over the Gauja river. It's slow. It opens picturesque panoramas, but 5 euros is too much. Well, it saves you half an hour of walking: descending the hill to the river and then ascending it again to get to the other side - Krimulda. So, doing it one way is recommended, but going backwards - only if you are saving your time.
Krimulda is a manor with lots of old houses, dating back from XIX century and a XIII century castle ruins. We didn't do our homework about it, but walking around with too little time left on our schedule was quite nice (and the path we got to take to get to the other side is going through this estate).

Krimulda's castle ruins. Strategically it's a very good location for a castle, I still can't understand why it is ruined.

Desceding from Krigulda is quite an extreme experience - at least the path and stairs we found were quite broken, wet and all kinds of not suitable for old ladies. Dodging snails resting peacefully on the path we experienced the Latvian jungle. Beware! Тhere is a teddy bear living in one of the trees(which you can observe from cable cart), hopefully, he is afraid to get down from the tree:)

People do bungee jumping from this cable cart sometimes

While waiting for a cable cart to arrive we observed a castle from far away

Crossing the Gauja's river bridge and facing few hundreds of stairs(I didn't count, but there was a lot of them), our group split into two groups: those who still had energy left, and those who were practicing daily smoking hobby. Cigarette lover went to Tarzans park to get a car lift, and the rest two of us - swearing and sighing took the wooden stairs up the hill (the swearing part came later, halfway). At least the steps were in a lot better condition. And we were so happy to reach the top!

We left Sigulda quite on time, but the journey home was really long - road construction, lots of Latvians returning from country side to Riga after weekend, doing photo shoot at the sign of "Code"(I'm not gonna explain it!), heavy rain at Lithuania side of the trip - I reached my doorstep at about 12.30 am.

P.S. at our last coffee stop, just before stepping out of the car, it was surrounded by crazy playing/dancing/singing people, which happen to be Lithuanians coming with a bus from some folklore dance festival in Estonia. It was unexpected, but added a nice touch  to the whole day.

How to make the rain go away

And when I thought that Acacia Alley turned into umbrella alley, the voice in the microphone said: "the rain is switched off". And it was. At least for a while. The park of bent pines(yes, leaning a bit to the side, the phenomenon you happen to see at the seashore) quickly began to fill with foldaway chairs and blankets, and yes, people, picnicking and waiting for the concert to start. Acacia Alley is an annual festival of author songs and singing poetry taking place 15th time already. A small festival that grew into a big one day event offering a wide line up of famous Lithuanian bards and singers, attracting more than 10 thousand listeners (and the main reason for this is, because it's free). It's taking place in a small nice town of Kulautuva, 20 kilometres away from Kaunas.

A concert was a little bit late and started with young singers' performances. Singing few songs each of them warmed up the listeners for more famous artists. Vladas Bagdonas summoned more clouds and it rained cats and dogs. I wasn't very happy with his performance, as I forgot my umbrella at home and had to survive the Great Flood with the camping mat and linden tree over my head. Then followed the Song Theater revived by Vidas Bareikis. The original Song Theater was created by Vytautas Kernagis. As it was all famous old music the rain didn't matter anymore. For me too, because I grew up listening to his vinyls. And the fact that I was already soaked up in rain, a little bit more didn't make any difference. I was armed with green tea thermos and "kinder Bueno" chocolate. not that I was fighting rain, more like I was cowardly hiding under the tree and camping mat.

Umbrellas everywhere... only I don't have one.

Then it was a turn for a red haired owner of unique voice - Alina Orlova. Pine trees are really good for acoustics, apparently. This performance sounded a lot better than the one in June in Kaunas old town. Her red hair switched the rain off, or just switched the sun on - it seemed like it was not raining, but some drops still dripping from the trees.

As the performers kept changing, the rain switch was turning on and off again. Maybe it's their songs that made the rain angry, maybe they were singing not enough about the rain, maybe too little, maybe not in the way that rain wanted them to hear.
Or was it me carrying that cloud curse? You see, I went for a run this morning, and the rain caught me up. Though it was a great motivator to run faster, as soon as I came back home, it stopped. How does one gets rid of that curse? And I'm really glad, I didn't go there with a bike.