Blogs from Lithuania, Europe - page 2

or Trans-Siberian Adventure – Prelude 1: Lithuania (and a bit of Poland and Latvia) This trip actually began in Poland but, seeing as that leg involved only a train from Puszczykowo to Warsaw immediately followed by an overnight bus to Vilnius, I shall spare you the few details and commence this series of blogs in Lithuania. As can be surmised from the subtitle, I have finally gotten around to taking the Trans-Siberian Railway from Europe to Asia. I’ve been wanting to do this for as long as I can remember. As a kid who was very much into geography facts, there was something alluring about the longest train ride in the world, across the world’s largest country, skirting the bottom of the world’s largest forest, past the world’s oldest, deepest, and most voluminous lake, to the ... read more

23 July 2019 A relaxing day which enabled us to recover from the previous evening’s festivities. We walked up the nearby Parnidis Dune and finally got round to having a swim in the Baltic.... read more

21 July 2019 Behind the Curonian Spit there is a huge lagoon and on the mainland a low lying delta where the River Nemunas breaks up into many smaller channels before reaching the sea. The Nemunas Delta is a national park and the the home to many species of land and sea birds. We had a magnificent day long boat trip across the lagoon and into the delta.... read more

27th June - 14th July 2019 After our great clean up in Nikkala we crossed the border into Finland. No border controls were in evidence so it was very speedy and smooth. As in Norway and Sweden the roads are decorated with signs warning of elk (called moose in Alaska) every couple of kilometres but we never saw one. Jim read that in Sweden each year some 35,000 elk are killed by hunters. Finland is a flat country and if you like lakes, forests and mosquitoes you would love it. It is beautiful in places but the forests make it difficult to see very much as you travel. We chose a road which runs along by the Gulf of Bothnia for fifty miles or so and we did not view the sea once, only forest alongside ... read more

27 June 2019 Trakai has a heavily restored picture-postcard castle on a small island in Lake Galve linked to the town by a couple of footbridges. In showery and sunny weather, we took a boat ride there across the lake from the campsite and spent a pleasant afternoon exploring the castle and town.... read more