Loving Lithuania – Part 1

We usually find that the TomTom that Colin uses for navigation when driving differs to Google Maps that I tend to use to check we’re going where we think we are.  On our journey to Lithuania the difference in distances we were each being told was way off. After a bit of head scratching it eventually dawned on us that TomTom was taking us the shorter route through Belarus.  While Colin liked the idea of driving through Belarus, we decided the hassle we’d no doubt get at the border would outweigh the time to drive a bit further through Poland.

As we got closer to the Lithuanian border, the roads started to get a bit rougher, and more forested. As always once across the border everything felt a little different in the landscape and the buildings. 

Our destination for the first couple of nights was Druskininkai, a spa town in Southern Lithuania, with wide tree-lined boulevards and known for its mineral waters with healing properties.  We parked up at a pleasant municipal campsite on the edge of the town. With the weather looking likely to be very showery the next couple of days, we decided a trip to some spa baths may be in order at some point.

Thankfully the rain did halt by lunchtime the following day and (after doing some laundry) we got out on the bikes to cycle on on the fabulous cycle paths around the town and through the surrounding forests.  Our first port of call was Grutas Park – a Soviet sculpture park displaying a collection of communist monuments along forest trails and surrounded by barbed wire and a watch tower for extra effect.  There were some pieces on display at the entrance to the park, but as we’d read the park was also a zoo where the animal welfare was questionable, we decided we didn’t want to pay to see any more.

We cycled back into town to get a coffee and a snack before starting the forest cycle trail.  There are lots of nice coffee shops in the town, but Colin picked a slightly dubious and dingy looking place.  When we walked in the girl behind the counter looked pretty alarmed, and when she realised we didn’t speak Lithuanian she ran off to get her boss, who appeared and had assumed we were Polish. She also looked alarmed when she found out we are English.  Google translate saved the day and we ended up with two traditional Lithuanian dishes – potato cakes with soured cream and cottage cheese donuts with chocolate sauce.  Not the healthiest lunch but very tasty.

After a walk through a craft market that was taking place in the town we continued on for a 15 mile bike ride around the forests surrounding the town which was just wonderful. The path was paved and we barely saw anyone else.  All we could hear was birdsong as we wound our way around and passed beautiful serene lakes.

Before we left town the following morning we decided we should try the healing mineral waters at a local spa.  The one we went to was attached to a hotel, but it was a very strange place. There were lots of people wandering around in white gowns and there seemed to be medical rooms and dental practices within the complex.  We finally found the Aqua Park area and even though it’s not really our thing, we enjoyed an hour or so soaking in the warm pools and sweating it out in the sauna and steam rooms.

From here we headed north to a small town called Trakai that sits on a 2km peninusula and is famous for the fairy tale castle that sits in the middle of Lake Galve.  We parked Lolly up in the grounds of a house just a short walk from the town. There was already a nice looking Dutch Unimog expedition vehicle parked up.

We called in at a waterside restaurant and sampled another Lithuanian delicacy – a giant potato dumpling stuffed with meat (known as Zeppelins).  It was OK but not totally delicious. The weather was cool and overcast as we visited the castle which is reached by a long wooden bridge.  It is a stunning site even in the missly weather. A Grand Duke made Trakai the capital back in the 14th century before the capital moved to Vilnius.  A large number of the rooms in the castle now house collections of things like porcelain, glassware, ivory objects and pipes to name a few.  Another area told of how the castle was repeatedly plundered by the Teutonic Knights and others and was even a prison for wealthy nobles for a time.

We had a walk into town afterwards, but being a Saturday afternoon everything was largely closed. There were some very attractive wooden buildings.  On a warm summers day we could see there would be lots of boats out on the lake, but today all we wanted was a delicious hot chocolate that we enjoyed in a chocolate shop and museum.

Back at Lo11y, I could see Colin was fixated on the Dutch truck – I told him off for being disrespectful to Lo11y.  We now also had another UK campervan next to us.  When the Dutch returned Colin spotted them eyeing up Lo11y, so he wasted no time getting out to discuss all things truck with them.  The Brit out of the campervan joined us.

We were happy to see the weather had brightened up the following morning as we had an early start to get to Vilnius (just 28km away) to get parked up in a central car park and be in the city ready for a bike tour we’d booked that morning.  The car park was in a terrific location right by the central cathedral square.  Although a Sunday morning, there were quite a few people around the city.  We enjoyed another really good bike tour around the key sites of the city:

Starting at Cathedral Square

Around the Presidential Palace

The Jewish quarter

The Old Town

The Republic of Uzupis

The community of Uzupis is similar to the Christiania district in Copenhagen, where it has been declared a republic and has it’s own constitution – there are engraved plaques down one street with translations into many languages – see below – how many resonate with you? There are even border controls.  This is an artists area with quirky galleries, sculptures and cafes.

The modern city

The guide gave us lots of take away facts about Lithuania and the city.   The country has been occupied and controlled by Russia for much of its history, the most recent being post the Nazi occupation during World War 2 until 1991 when it regained its independence, going on to join the EU in 2004, then NATO in 2008.  The guide said the population always strived to maintain its traditions throughout occupation resisting the Russians imposing their communists’ practices as much as possible. 

Lithuania has established itself as a passionate supporter of democracy and freedom and is supporting Ukraine 100% which was evident with the number of Ukraine flags around the city, a large message on a modern high-rise building ‘Putin – the Hague is waiting for you’, and all the city buses had a sign Vilnius loves Ukraine flashing up. 

Vilnius ensures the horrors its people have been through are not forgotten with monuments and museums all around the city.

The current president, who has been in office since 2019, has strengthened ties with EU and NATO and fostered good relationships with its neighbouring countries to minimise its dependence on Russia for energy supplies. In fact, all three Baltic states switched from the Russian controlled grid in February 2025 to the European grid. He is a strong advocate for supporting the country’s history and identity and seems to be very forward thinking.

Lithuania has become a centre for Engineering and Manufacturing, Life science and Biotechnology and has a thriving IT sector. In fact, when Colin phoned a support desk for our truck router a couple of months ago, he discovered the guy he was speaking to is based in Vilnius.   Our guide said Covid had not affected their economy adversely at all. They are not dependent on tourism having a relatively short summer season.

We absolutely loved what we had seen of the city so far.  We had booked a tour of a Soviet prison late afternoon, but then discovered another museum we were keen to visit (the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights) didn’t open for the next two days. We asked the prison if we could transfer our tickets to the following day, but they said no, so we had a very intense afternoon at these two sites.

The Museum for Occupations and Freedom Fights is situated in the former headquarters of the KGB. We unfortunately didn’t really have time to do it justice. There was so much to read on the timeline on the horrors experienced by the Lithuanians through Stalin’s Russia and Hitlers Germany. We learnt about the Forest Brotherhood, a group of young partisans who fought for 10 years hiding out in the forests.  There were stories of people being taken from their homes in cattle trucks to be shipped off to Siberia and the constant surveillance by the KGB.  The exhibition continued into the basement where prisoners were imprisoned and tortured.  It didn’t hold back on the horrendous treatment.

We hardly had time to catch our breath before the start of the tour of the Lukiskes prison, a brutal looking sandstone building surrounded by barbed wire that was built in 1904 and unbelievably operated as a prison until 2019.  We were expecting the tour to be largely more tales of atrocities during the war and under the Russians, but we were greeted by an entertaining tour guide who for two hours took us around each area of the prison and explained how it had operated in recent years. The first area we visited was the processing cells where we could see graffiti dated in the mid to late 2010’s.  Everything had been left in the condition it was in when closed in 2019, which was a real eye opener of how basic and brutal the conditions were in such recent times.  Unfortunately we were asked not to take photos inside the building but were allowed to outside.  We visited a cell towards the end of the tour in a wing that reminded us of Porridge. We wonder who the Fletcher & Godbers were that went through here.  The prison was designed to hold just 600-700 inmates at any one time, but at it's peak it held thousands. In a cell for two there could be as many as 24 squeezed in. The former exercise yard has been transformed into an outdoor bar and concert area now, with a large screen to watch sport – mainly basketball which is Lithuania’s number one sport.  Some of the internal rooms are now used by local bands to practice too.

After a pretty full on day of sightseeing we headed to a traditional Lithuanian restaurant before crashing out. 

The forecast the following day was for a good morning, so we decided to have a walk around the old town where it had been difficult to visit on the cycle tour.  We started with a walk up to the Gediminas Castle Tower which was next to our car park for some good views over the city.  We continued on weaving our way around the old town.  We stopped for a coffee and had a pink and green Brompton parked next to us. We’d spotted it the day before as it is like my Brompton but in reverse.  You don’t see many like this.  We got chatting to the owner, a local called Simon, who obviously loved his bike and said he’d gone for the unusual colour as it reminded him of beet soup.  He was a well travelled gentleman and proudly showed us his flat cap that he’d bought from a store in Piccadilly.

We set off out of the city around lunchtime heading towards the lake district of Lithuania in Aukstaitja National Park.  We stopped just 10 km from the city at a forested site called Paneriai which was the site of the massacre of 100,000 people from Vilnius and nearby towns during World War 2.  Out of these there were around 70,000 Jews, 20,000 Polish and 8,000 Russian POW.  A trail takes you around the nine memorials to each group in the forest. It was hauntingly quiet with just the two us there.

We reached the Lake District area late afternoon and headed to a campsite by a lake. We drove through a small hamlet and onto a rough dirt road when we realised we had a vehicle behind furiously flashing us. We let it pull up alongside and it turned out to be the campsite manager who told us to follow him. We finally reached the site that was beautifully tidy with covered tables and even a football pitch. We had the whole place to ourselves. There were no other facilities though other than an old portaloo, so we were a bit taken aback with how much we wanted to pay.  Colin squeezed him down a bit, but we were still robbed.  It was a damp evening and the mossies were on overdrive, so we didn’t even get to enjoy the outside space.

We had a bike ride plotted around the area the following day so thankfully the heavy overnight rain had stopped. It was a pleasant route taking through traditional local villages and past lakes and forests.   One particularly rural track took us to a cluster of wooden buildings where we were surprised to see a coach load of kids turn up.  An information board explained this was a famous ‘bird village’ which made us chuckle – see the sign below.

Whilst it was a nice route there was not much of interest to stop to look at, other than an old watermill (who’s visitor centre was closed) and not a coffee stop in sight. We finally found a restaurant tucked away in a small town where we had an unexpectedly tasty lunch. It was a very quirky place, and full of local and visitors alike. We took away a small tree cake  (Sakotis) – a traditional Lithuanian confection made by piling batter on a rotating spit which results in the tree like shape.  We had it with a cup of tea back in Lo11y – let’s just say we won’t be bringing any home with us.

We decided we didn’t want to pay for another night in the campsite, so we drove on a short way to a picnic site by a lake where we could park for free. There was already an Austrian camper there.  We were joined by a German camper who insisted on parking very close to us.  It was a beautiful sunny evening and we bagsied the best spot on a bench on a jetty overlooking the lake listening to the birdsong and fishes jumping. (Can I just add that the photo where it looks like I can't hold my drink was due to an exploding bottle of alcohol free prosecco! I think I'd better stick to the real thing now..... ).

The next morning we were up earlyish to set off to our next new country of the trip – Latvia.

If you’re wondering why this is called Part 1 it’s because we are heading up the east and central regions of each country first and then planning to come back down the western coastal  side, so we will be returning to Lithuania in a few of weeks. What we’ve seem so far we absolutely love – it’s clean, fresh and the people are super-friendly.