TO RUSSIA WITH LOVE – WELL ALMOST!

On the Baltic coast between Poland and Lithuania there is a Russian enclave surrounding the port of Kalingrad.  We spent a night at Goldap just three kilometres from the border before travelling parallel with it to the east and into Lithuania.  There we headed north to Kaunas.  In Kaunas, Friday is obviously the day to get married.  In the main city square couples were going in and out of the Old Town Hall ...

Kaunas Old Town Hall

... and either into one of several waiting stretched limos or walking over to one of the nearby churches for a blessing.

Kaunas Unusual Stretched Limo

The little that remains of the old town is very pleasant. 

Kaunas Vilnius Street

Here as in much of Lithuania we got the impression that great efforts are being made to recover from the years of oppressive Soviet rule but it is quite a struggle.  The scale of the problem can be seen from the interior of one church where restoration work has now begun.

Kaunas St George's Church

An easy drive alongside the Nemunas  River (more huge barges!) ...

Barge on Nemunas Rive

... took us to Ventė with a campsite on the shore of the Curonian Lagoon

Ventė, Beach at Campsite Ventainė

At Vente we visited the Bird Ringing Station where each year thousands of migrating birds are caught in huge cone shaped netting traps, ringed and released. (The photo shows some of the smaller ones)

 Bird trap at Ventės Ragas Ornithological Station

 

Stretching 100 km (about 64 miles) north from the Russian enclave at Kalingrad is a spit of land – the Curonian Spit – little more than a sandbank, but 70% covered by pine forest.  It is 3.8 km wide at its widest and less than 1 km at its narrowest points.  The highest point is the 67.2 metre high Vecekrugas Dune (Old Inn Hill).  It cuts the Curonian Lagoon off from the Baltic Sea except for a narrow channel at the northern tip and there is one small town – Nida – and several villages along the Lithuanian part of the spit. 

We moved from Ventė to Klaipėda and next day took the ferry across to the spit with our bikes and then the bus 50 km south to the town of Nida almost on the Russian border.  

Fishermen's Cottages at Nida

There fishermen still smoke their fish in traditional ways outside their cottages. (A huge range of smoked fish is available here and is all delicious!).  The Churchyard at Nida had some strange wooden ‘gravestones’ whose design dates back to pagan times.

 

Grave markers in Nida Churchyard

From there we cycled 30 km along a superb cycle track back to the village of Juodkrantė and caught the bus back to the ferry.  Near our campsite was a railway line along which very long Russian goods trains passed regularly day and night transporting goods for export from Kalingrad.  Most of them look rather old to say the least!  The one in the photo had over fifty tanker waggons.

Russian Goods Train

Deep in the forest in the Žemaitijos National Park north of Plungė there are the remains of a huge Soviet nuclear missile base which was kept secret from the Lithuanians for many years until it mysteriously disappeared in 1978.  The remains have been excavated and are now  a museum which we hoped to visit as we moved on towards the Latvian border but it was closed for restoration work.  After weeks of lovely warm sunny weather, we had the first proper rain since we were in Germany as we spent a couple of nights outside the town of Šiauliai.

Tomorrow we should be going on into Latvia.