West to the Baltic Sea!

Farm to Table Lithuania-style: The day began with a bus ride along the Nemunas River. We mounted the bikes and rode to our lunch site located in the countryside near one of the largest bird sanctuaries in Europe. A local farmer and his wife prepared a multi-course meal served at a long table in the grass near their fruit trees and vegetable garden.

We ate  two kinds of Lithuanian potato pancakes, home made pickles, compote, cold beet soup, potatoes, bread, tea, home made moonshine and more. Except for the stinky outhouse, its was great. Following our al fresco lunch, we walked down to the bird sanctuary. It seems this part of Lithuania is a major flyway for birds from north to south - as far south sometimes as Africa. We got a tour from a quirky birdman and realized that we were right on the Baltic Sea in Vente. 

 The bird man holds a bird, tags it and sets it free.

 The birds fly into a chute and are trapped in a net until tagged and released.

The downside to having a lovely, filling lunch when on a bike tour is that you are expected to get on your bike and ride after the meal. We ignored the call to ride on the bus and headed off through miles of forests. 

Birds are big here. While pedaling past field after field, we would see these huge poles in the middle of a field with a large nest on top - a really large nest with a large stork or two on the nest. It seems the legend of storks delivering babies originated in Scandinavia, not so far from Lithuania. These are BIG birds that migrate from distant lands so I guess they were a good choice for explaining where babies came from (!).

We stayed for a couple of nights in Klaipeda. It's a lovely town on a river that feeds into the Curonian Lagoon where ferries go up and down to the end of the Curonian Spit which is this skinny, skinny piece of land that extends from Klaipeda to Nida. We took one and headed to the very end passing by the National Park.

 Monster sand dunes along the Curonian Spit

Nida is a resort town full of restaurants and shops. Before cycling out of town to head back to Klaipeda on bikes, we stopped at an amber museum where we drank a liquor made from amber and the summer home of the German author Thomas Mann. The Germans knew much more about him than we did. He apparently was very political - anti Nazi and did win the Pulitzer Prize. Some of the Germans were curious about which books we knew by Mann. Lou said Magic Mountain. They laughed and said the Americans always say Magic Mountain. He is known in Germany for Buddenbrooks. He wrote A LOT of books.

For the next few hours, we rode up the Curonian Spit on the Seaside Cycle Route. We decided against a swim in the Baltic as it was windy and cool and just cycled through piney forests and sand dunes.

We even stopped at a place where it looks like there has been a great fire. the trees are all dead and huge birds nest and circle the area. It is full of cormorants and their bird poop is what is killing the trees. There is some sort of program that is trying to decrease the population of birds by introducing sterile cormorants into the mix.

When we finally made it back to Klaipeda, it was late and we needed to find a place to eat. The woman at the hotel reception suggested a place that had an excellent reputation. We quickly taxied over with a Canadian friend from the tour and had a wonderful meal with excellent service. It was a lovely end to a long day.