A little story from Lithuania. The plan in Klaipeda, the coast of the country, was to take a ferry to the island in front of it. The island borders Kaliningrad in Russia. How everything changed and how to end up in a time machine to the soviet union, find out!
Where is Klaipeda and what is this island?
Klaipeda is a harbor city in the west of Lithuania, so on the Baltic Sea coast. It is the most important harbor of the country and in general a really important city for the whole baltic region.
It is quite close to the Russian exclave Kaliningrad, which is especially now with the conflict in Europe even more important. Also it could become critical in the whole Baltic states, when it gets bigger, but this is not about politics!
The island is called the Curonian Spit, which is a spit lying in front of Lithuania and Kaliningrad.
BBC
Short version, it is basically a peninsula.
The Curonian Spit is split up by Russia and Lithuania, which makes this quite interesting.
Why camping exactly there?
The fact, to camp on a peninsula, with not many people on it and also not many people knowing about it was interesting. The pictures looked like a nice place to spend a couple of nights. Also interesting, that it borders Russia, that was a little bonus to it.
Besides the mentioned facts, camping was a thing to look forward to and not knowing what the next countries would have brought. It would have been some chance we were wanting to take.
The trip was sadly a bit rushed and also due to the bad weather the decision was made to not go to visit it on that trip. Still it is seeming like a great trip for a future adventure in Europe.
The story
Everything was starting normal. The hitchhiking was from the city of Kaunas in Lithuania. Everything was working as usual, sometimes waiting a little bit longer, sometimes not.
Once that day, we were stuck at a little platform, in the middle of nowhere on a highway. It was a bit annoying, because not many people drove out there, but many people on the highway itself.
We were cooking food there and in those situations also asking the question, “When we are stuck here, where do we sleep?”. Our plan was bad, but luckily someone was stopping and it was possible to get further.
He had the whole car full of tires and normally there would be no place to sit, but at least the front seat was free, where we were able to sit.
While we were driving, the weather changed. There was no sun out in the sky, just rain and it was a lot of rain. Even with the car trying to remove the water, it was still not possible to see properly.
We were arriving in the darkness in Klaipeda with strong rain, which was not really helpful, to get motivated. He was showing us around the city, which was great and at the end he was offering that we could sleep at his place.
We really were wanting to go camping, but in this weather it was not making a lot of sense to do so. Because of everything that was going on, we decided to accept the offer.
The apartment
When being used to things which are not clean, or not great to be surrounded, you don’t really care that much anymore. While entering this apartment, there was a mixture going on inside of me. The mixture of discussing and fascination.
The apartment seemed to be like back in the Soviet Union. It was the way you would think about apartments back then. Due to the fact, that Lithuania was part of it, it is actually very likely to be from then and not renovated.
We were not having problems staying there, just felt a bit uncomfortable. I was not willing to take a shower in the bathroom. With that I was alone, because a shower was taken that night.
The host was leaving the apartment and went to his parents. To give us our own space and just a place to stay the night over, which was really nice.
What to do better next time?
I mean there was not much to be actually better, because without him, the situation would have not looked great.
It would have been smart to check the weather forecast beforehand. To be sure, if going there would be even a good idea.
When knowing that it is not really good going to the island in the first place. Probably then a different route would have been the option.
Still everything went at the end quite well. We had a place to sleep and meeting great people was also a part of the experience.
Summary
When thinking about hitchhiking, you never know how your day is going to look, where you are going to stay and what people you are going to meet. This is something, which I really like about this form of traveling.
It is of course not the fastest or the most comfortable way of traveling around. It is a form of slow traveling. During which you are going to get to know many people. Also have the chance of seeing the country in a way, which is a bit more proper.
You are able to see the good in the people, who are sometimes so welcoming and wanting to help as much as possible. This story is the best example for the statement.
In general you will not know how safe it will be. Also not, how much you need to wait and how far you are getting. While traveling a lot over 20.000km, nothing really unsafe was happening. Just some were not the best experiences, which can happen with everything.
In the end, we didn’t go to the island. Because of a lack of time, but it was still a good experience. At least there is now something, for another time visiting the country!
I would love to hear your experiences about this place, or questions. Share it with me in the comments.
Lithuania Stories: Sleeping like in the soviet union – Klaipeda
