Week 3 Lithuania's wild East (Lithuania, Latvia)

The Trakai Castle is truly an eye-catcher. Even though we are not usually fans of castles or museums, this castle has been beautifully restored and can impressively convey how things must have been in the past.

After the sightseeing tour, we continued towards Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Once again, we drove to a campsite near the city. Just freshen up and wash the fish!

Here at the campsite, we met an older couple from Plön, whom we would meet several times over the next few days...

Around noon, we took the bus to the city center, where we mainly visited the Old Town and the artists' quarter.

The Užupis district is definitely worth a visit. It used to be mainly inhabited by Jews. After the Holocaust, it was largely empty and neglected. Initially, many homeless people revitalized the neighborhood until it was gradually populated by artists in the 90s.

Very cool: in 1997, a 'Free Republic' with its own constitution, president, and passports was declared there. However, it was never officially recognized.

Every year on Užupis' birthday, border controls are set up and the condition for entry is a smile. Sometimes, beer flows through the district's taps instead of water on its birthday (Kerrin would like to stay here until April 1st). The 41 articles are written on plaques on the walls in different languages.

As fate would have it, on the way back from the Old Town to the bus stop, we passed a small, very fine alternative city festival with live rock bands. This took place at the Vilnius railway museum. Locomotives and wagons of all sizes and from all eras were standing around (this is where Olli would have liked to stay).

Regarding the bands, Olli is convinced that one band had Kassierer as a role model, just with Lithuanian lyrics. ;-)

After the hustle and bustle in the city, we longed for something more relaxed and drove to the next national park in Lithuania. It was the Aukštaitija National Park, which once again had countless natural lakes for us to enjoy.

Thanks to our app Maps.me, we easily found the next campsite right by Lake Almajas. Since it was Friday afternoon, we were, of course, not alone there, as Lithuanians also love going out into nature, eating together with friends by the lake, and making a campfire. But always making sure to keep enough distance not to disturb anyone.

So, as we learned earlier, we gathered firewood together in the forest. We also finally found the blueberry bushes that Kerrin had been looking for and picked as many berries as we could find.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to have the campfire after all. Petrus spoiled our plans and made it rain heavily. Luckily, there was a wooden cabin a few meters away where we could cozy up in the evening.

We used the next day for a 15 km hike. The weather was great again, and we were eager to move. During our hike, we were surprised to run into the couple from Plön again. We walked together for a while until our paths separated at a fork.

In the evening, we finally had the cozy campfire by the lake. It was the best!

On Sunday, we continued our journey and left Lithuania behind. In a travel guide, we found a family-run hotel in Kokneses with camping facilities on a meadow, about 1 hour before Riga, and headed straight there. Kokneses is located in Latvia. Initially, we only planned to spend one night there and go to Riga on Monday afternoon to explore the capital of Latvia all day Tuesday. But when we arrived at the small hotel, we were amazed at how incredibly beautiful the family had set up the hotel and campsite, and decided to stay another night. We were initially the only guests there before three other people arrived. Interestingly, the couple from Plön also arrived at the campsite early in the evening. There was a lot of chatting, and we got to know each other better. The other guest, Sven, was also German, and we had a great conversation with him, which was a lot of fun.

After a romantic dinner for two on the terrace, made from ingredients from their own garden and one of the most delicious dishes of our trip so far, we took a short walk to the nearby river with a beer. There, we could admire a beautiful old castle ruin illuminated from all sides.

We took advantage of the extra time in Kokneses with an extensive SUP tour on the river. Armed with the air pump (unfortunately, the SUP has a small leak, despite our attempts to fix it with good rubber boot glue!!!), we set out to the castle ruin. It was fun.

After crossing Lithuania from south to north, we can draw a first conclusion. Lithuania is incredibly green. Forests as far as the eye can see, and since they are mostly pine forests, they also smell incredibly nice. The Lithuanians we met are very friendly but rarely approach you. Once the ice was broken, we had a lot of fun with them.

The prices in the supermarket are relatively high from our point of view. Sliced cheese is not available for less than 2.40 euros, and an avocado costs about 2 euros. Currently, a liter of diesel also costs 1.19 euros here. Let's hope that the Lithuanians can save some money on services.

Fortunately, tastes are very different, but from our point of view, everything in Lithuania is too sweet. It starts with the milk, the black bread (which also tastes like caraway), the simple tomato sauce that tastes like ketchup, and even the muesli is super sweet.

All in all, a beautiful country that we will visit again when we need some time for ourselves, as you can really slow down here.