Day 5 - Meteliai - Kaunas

Dear all,

 

The day started at 7h00 but I felt somehow cold in the morning. The wind was blowing quite intense and I think I was just not very ready to see a cloudy and cold day outside... So I just switched off the alarm clock and slept about one more hour.

What a surprise to see a sunny day outside, although the wind was quite chilled :)

Not much time needed to dismantle all the camping gear and to pack everything into the panniers.

I had some breakfast by the lake and at about 10h15m I was ready to leave the camping!

Ready to go!

Meteliai is a very quite place and I have cycle the roads near to it almost all the time alone:

Countryside Lithuania

PeterLamb cycling in Lithuania

I have cycled for about 8 km till the first stop when I knew that the bike was close to have travelled 1000 km since I have bought it.

PeterLamb's shadow is also cycling

The first 1000 km on the bike

Countryside Lithuania is quite nice for cycling, although you do not find a lot of people on the way. Nevertheless, sometimes the views are very nice.

Lake house

Countryside Lithuania

After thi point some navigation troubles started. The maps I have bought never arrived by mail, so I rely on logic, free maps from tourism office and the maps of Ipad. The thing is that the names of the small villages does not appear on the map, it is hard to find people that you can ask for information and the location aid on Ipad relies on the wifi hotspots that are not always easy to find.

When I was leaving Krokialaukis, I saw a sign that I remember to have seen it before in Google Street view some months ago. So, I should be at this crossing, no way I want to turn left, there is a way in front and another one to the left. According to the Ipad map it was no logic that the way in front was not the one to follow and I did not want to go to Alytus that was what was saying in the sign to the right, so I kept cycling straight ahead.

The wind was blowing pretty strong then so I stopped for some tuna can to have some proteins and energy. After cycling 7 km I saw the signs of Simnas and Igliauka. God dammed, it is not here that i wanted to be... I have confirmed it with a girl that was waiting for the bus and I had no other choice but make the 7 km back to the same place I was some time earlier.

Church in Krokialaukis

I have finally took the right road to pass into Balbieriskis where there is a viewpoint to the river.

The road there is sometimes without tarmac and quite uncomfortable to ride it.

No idea about what is written in the sign

At this point I was not sure how far I was from the destination and not sure as well what time was the bus that was supposed to take me into Kaunas. So I have phoned to my work and, like always, guys were there to help out when we do need something (cheers mates)!!

I finally made it into the viewpoint and at this time I had little food and little water.

Viewpoint in Balbieriskis

Yes, I was there!

Time to go back to the road. This road is with quite a lot of traffic and usually I could not complain about the Polish drivers that left always a lot of space, but in Lithuania I learnt I have to be always foccused.

I had, unfortunatly no time to arrive into Birstonas, so I decided to wait for the bus at Prienai.

I went to the counter to ask which time was the bus to Kaunas but she could not understand a word of English and my Lithuania is also zero. So we needed to write, do some mimics and a lot of guessing.

I understood that the bus was leaving in 1 minute but not able to take the bike. So I needed to wait for the next one.

The bike is just transported on the luggage compartment. I must say though that price of ticket was just a bit over 2 Euro and the bus had wifi for free, that I seized to send some e-mails and to update the blog.

Bike on the bus to Kaunas

After I arrived to Kaunas I had to look for one church where I was going to meet my host. With a lot of gestures, I could somehow understand what people were trying to say to me.

I eventually reached the church called Soboras.

Soboras church

I did not need to wait much for my friendly host Zita to arrive.

We took around a 40 minutes walk to her place, through a park and some other housing.

Me and my host Zita in Kaunas

After taking all my stuff into her nice appartment on the 5th floor (with no lift) I have made my lundry, shaved, shower and got ready to have some meal out of home.

We had a meal in a restaurant where the waitresses wear traditional clothes and where I could try some traditional food! Surprising to me was that it is the same as the tartaczne I had on the day before still in Poland! I tried as well the Lithuania beer that is good, but different from what we are used to. It is difficult to say what is different on it.

Anyway, food was really good and it was a pleasure to invite my host Zita for a dinner out.

Her friend Gintare has joined us at the restaurant and after we went for a bar where we had another beer. This time was a white beer with some lemmon. Quite good though.

Zita and Gintare

It was a very nice evening with loads of talking. Thank you so much for the lovely evening girls!

 

Summary of the day:

• Daily distance: 63,35 km
• Daily time: 3h20m51s
• Average speed: 19,14 km/h
• Maximum speed: 57,73 km/h (pretty good, right?)

 

• Total distance so far: 252,91 km
• Total time cycling so far: 13h51m33s

And that is all for now folks!

 

Best,

Peter

 

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