Klaipeda and Kaunas

At this point in the trip we were playing fast and loose with plans. We knew that we wanted to spend time in Latvia and Lithuania, but since we could hardly tell them apart before visiting there wasn't much that we were looking for specifically. After much debate and checking of transit routes we settled on going to the coastal town of Klaipeda in western Lithuania (eastern coastline being fairly hard to come by).

We had initially scheduled just two days, but soon realized that it was worth much more. Our guesthouse was relatively near the old town, but we covered it in an afternoon. For tight-pursed backpackers, old towns filled with jewelry or amber shops don't offer much excitement. If you're into amber, though, Klaipeda is the place to go. Apparently they find it on the beaches in huge chunks and then make elaborate ornaments out of it.

Instead we took the ferry to the Curonian Spit, a long and thin landmass that goes from Poland through Kaliningrad and up to the ferry terminal at Smiltyne where we got off. Sightly disappointed that it was more than a day's journey to get to the Russian border (not that our visas were valid anyway) we contented ourselves with the spit itself.

Auberon loved the beach and decided to spend much of his time there, while I walked through the forests. I was quickly and completely bewitched by their incredible beauty. The air was perfectly crisp, the grass was astonishingly green, and when I stopped walking I could just hear trees and wind. The main path branched off into smaller paths, and I saw dozens of huge orb weavers in their webs, evidence that the larger part of the tourists had stopped tramping about for the season. I saw very few people except when near the beaches, and surely only a fraction of those who come at the height of summer.

The next day we planned to go out again. Auberon would continue to enjoy the beach with a picnic lunch, and I would rent a bike and see the forests at a higher speed. Alas, I discovered that the bike rental shops were closed in the off season, and I only found this out after an hour or so of walking around town. But I had a map, and I was already on the north end of town, and so I decided to keep going north.

I found forests soon enough, as well as a huge and sprawling adventure park which looked far too fun to ever be constructed in the United States. There were ziplines, balance beams, tightropes, swings, and more dangerous playthings all suspended twenty feet or more off the ground. There was a ticket office with ropes and helmets but I knew that if I was a student at the nearby university, that park is the first place to go after a night of drinking in the dorms.

I reached a tiny beach suburb after an hour or so of walking around the port and railway depot. There was not much to see besides some strange and old concrete bunkers half-buried in the sand and clearly still used by enthusiastic drinkers and urinators. I popped into the tiny town library and had a halting Russian conversation with the kindly librarian, explaining that I had worked in a library and that I liked to see what libraries around the world looked like during my travels (many people speak Russian in Latvia and Lithuania, and the guesthouse owner was the only person to tell me I should have learned some Lithuanian).

Returning to home, Auberon and I had a pizza dinner and planned for the next day's trip to Kaunas.

Auberon had been told that Kaunas was worth three hours at most, but like Moscow we found it a very agreeable place. We stayed right in the old town, in a hostel connected to a church. Our room came with a crucifix and a shrink-wrapped picture of a saint plus literature inviting us to retrace the pilgrimage of John Paul II around Lithuania.

Apart from a small fort near the church, there was a long pedestrian street that formed the main attraction of the city, starting in the old town and leading far further into a wider shopping area. I walked a good distance by myself the first night owing to Auberon's now-tattered shoes making it uncomfortable to keep up the hard miles. I saw some people square dancing in a park to a drummer and accordionist, forming a beautiful and wholesome scene.

The next day we walked more in a different direction and wound up at a large art museum, where we were some of the only patrons present. It had a large selection of more classical European art in the upper floors, with seascapes and wildlife sketches next to fine silverware and furniture. Auberon noticed a couple of pictures by the same artist who had taken a few liberties with proportions, such that when you looked closely Mary's eyes were the size of teacups and her legs were folded in knots around the Christ child.

From Kaunas we found an evening bus to Augustow, and the rolling plains out the window soon gave way to the forests of Poland.

Pictured: The fairy tale forests of Klaipeda, concrete on the beach, and the Kaunas old town.