We are in our fourth and final country. We arrived in Lithuania yesterday in the city of Klapedia. The city itself doesn't have much to offer. You can see the entire Old Town in less than an hour and it is full upscale stores and restaurants. The only attractoins or points of interest was a building where Hilter gave a speech during the second world war and then a few really random and weird statues. Like a grimm reaper crawling out of a river which was described as "something out of a child's dream"more like a nightmare!!! And a little mouse...if you can find it....you tell it your secret wishes and they will come true. Or the Cat, if you rub it's tale you will have good luck. We only found the grimm reaper.
Today we explored the Curonian Spit, a short 7 min ferry ride from Klapedia. If I ever find myself back in this part of the world i would stay on the Spit and enjoy a few days of lying on the beach and renting a bike to explore the endless number of trails that span the entire island.
One thing to note before venturing over to the spit with a vehicle is that there is only ONE gas station on the whole island and it is over 40km from the ferry terminal. We noticed we only had a quarter tank when we got off the ferry and went straight to the gas station...which also only has two pumps!
The village of Nida was very cute and lively. A lot of vacation homes here...apprenently a favorite spot for Germans to have a cottage. The beachs went on forever! And the sand was almost powder soft and white! The oddest thing about this sand was the sound it made when you walked! I had heard of a beach in the maritimes of Canada that "sings" when you walk but had never experienced it! This sand made almost a squeaky shoe sound as you walked. So odd! We dipped our feet in the Baltic Sea! I got up to just past my knees but no deeper....it was freezing!!! One day i'll need to figure out how many different bodies of water I have dipped my toes in. Beaches are well marked as family (with clothing), women only (clothing optional) or family (clothing optional)....the odd thing with this was that the family clothed beach had nothing but a small sign to seperate it from the womens clothing optional beach. And we only saw one sign on the whole spit that was a mens only beach but there was plenty of womens only beaches.
We checked out the Unesco sight on the Spit, sand dunes! This is a protected area of the island and you are only allowed to stay on a very well marked path and can't venture too far onto the dunes themselves. The sand on the dunes was a littlle more corse than the beach sand and had speckles of amber all over it. Amber is EVERYWHERE in the Baltics. From the top of the trail in the dunes we could see clearly from one side of the spit to the other. From the Curonian lagoon to the Baltic Sea! At the widest point on the island it is 4kms wide....the narrowest is only 400 meters.
I was so incredibly thankfully for bright sunshine and no clouds today! Of all days today was the day to have no rain! Such a refreshment from all the clouds, rain and wind we have had for the majority of our trip so far.
I think we will both sleep well tonight!
