How much of a country can one see in less than 30 hours? Especially when it rains half of that time!
My answer is: when traveling by motorbike you can still see a lot!
Considering how little time I had it would’ve been an obvious choice to skip Vilnius and just go straight to Poland. But how could I skip Vilnius?!
And I was really lucky to have a few rain-free hours to wander around and get the feeling of its very special atmosphere. Maybe because of the weather or the lack of people (who were wise enough to stay home) it felt mysterious and magical. Like the city was about to tell me its deepest secrets if only I stayed a little longer… I promised to come back!
I made a wish at the hill of crosses, tried cepelinai, stopped by the Trakai castle built on an a small island in the middle of a lake, sneaked into a monastery, and was about to check out Kaunas, too, when the rain situation got serious, so I had to skip that part and hurry over the border to Poland.
It was a very intense visit and I am now happily recharging batteries in a small villa in the middle of nowhere in Poland… but that’s a whole different story 😄
GoPro footage from Lithuania:
11. Riga 🏍 Vilnius (arriving to Lithuania)
Spent the last day in Latvia exploring the national parks and squeezed in some of the footage from the roads around Sigulda and Ligatne, just because the scenery there is amazing!
After the hiking and riding around Latvia, I was too tired to ride further but I didn’t have much choice, the weather was about to get much worse and I decided to head south ASAP.
The morning was very cold and I’ve been told roads could still be icy after the night. So I started off slowly and carefully and had to stop a couple of times to get coffee and solyanka (a delicious soup) and pull myself together to continue.
As I crossed the Lithuanian border I stopped at the hill of crosses, a very curious and slightly creepy pilgrimage sight.
Then drove by a little village with a beautiful church and had to try the delicious local cepelinai (potato & meat dumplings).
And then as I was nearing my final destination, just about the last 20km, I ran out of gasoline 😅 luckily I was only 1km away from the gas station, I started by dragging the bike along but gave up and just walked over to the station, they let me borrow a bottle to fill up so I could get my bike over for refuel 😁
As I arrived to Vilnius, it started to rain and my plan of exploring the city had to be postponed. Honestly I was glad to get an excuse to go to bed early, rest and recharge for the next day!
12. Vilnius 🏍 Elk
Tried to squeeze as much as possible in one day, before the weather got too bad. Went for a walk around Vilnius, stopped by Trakai castle, sneaked into a beautiful monastery, made it to Kaunas, crossed the border to Poland, and despite the rain and then the heavy mist arrived safely to my little house near Elk, Poland.
I was exhausted after the last intense days and the last hour of riding was really tough because of the heavy mist, curvy roads and almost complete darkness.
Also, as you can see on the video, one has to be very careful on the road, as there are plenty of idiots thinking they are too smart to follow the rules.
