Tuesday 8 September
We get up in the morning and because there is a small amount of wifi in the reception area, I have time to quickly load up a blog before we leave, but that is all. We need to try and get another hinge for our van door so we head into town to find a camping store we are told about by the camping ground manager. It takes us ages to find where the store is as the tablet shows it in a slightly different area and thankfully we find a guy at a hardware store who speaks the smallest amount of English to show us where we need to go. Anyway luck is not with us and we think we will have to head into Germany to find another hinge and have someone put it on as it is riveted and we have no tools.
We head out of Klaipeda back the way we came yesterday because we want to travel to Kaunas via Siauliai where there is an amazing hill of crosses to see. We have overestimated the roads in Lithuania – they aren’t as bad at Latvia at this stage, but they aren’t a lot better either. We head out of Kretinga and across towards Siauliai. We have wasted most of the morning looking for van stuff, so it is getting a little late in the day. We do decide to have a coffee I think – it’s difficult to remember sometimes when you write a few days late what you did. We haven’t had wifi or electricity for 5 days now and today is no different as I write this. We are told here there is wifi, but the bandwidth is so bad it won’t even refresh my maps so not worth doing anything.
Anyway we eventually get to Siauliai and find the Hill of Crosses. It is the most bizarre thing to see – this little hill in the middle of the flat and there are probably hundreds of thousands of crosses – possibly even millions scattered around the area. I am not sure exactly how it started but I know that in the 1980’s the Russians used to bulldoze the crosses out of the way and the civilians would sneak back during the night and start to resurrect them all back up again. Now, although the place is used to commemorate the spirit of the Lithuanian people who were killed by the Nazis and Russians, there are many crosses from people all over the world wanting to remember people they have lost. The crosses all have to be wooden and 99% of them are. There are also lots of rosary beads and Virgin Mary and Jesus statues plus other commemorative religious artefacts people have put there. You can walk amongst the crosses as there are paths winding all through them. It is a very strange feeling being there, quite surreal actually and quite difficult to describe. Scot was awed by the number of crosses that at the beginning just seemed like a hill in front of us, but when you walked amongst it was amazing how many people contributed. Busloads of tourists come out each day from Vilnius to see this and many add to the crosses. Scot would describe it just like a pilgrimage. The only thing I thought a bit funny was the one and only sign that said ‘no flames’. It would take a second for someone to destroy the entire hill with effectively a single match. It would not surprise me if one day this happened – if someone took offense to the site from a different religion. I had to put all the pictures I took in as you just can’t imagine how many crosses there are here, my photos really don’t even show how many there are.
We left the Hill of Crosses and since it was 5pm decided not to continue to Kaunas, but stay in a campsite close by. We found one just outside the town that was deserted and looked like it was closed but as we pulled in a lady appeared carrying a large punnet of raspberries. We paid her some money to stay as well as take the freshly picked punnet of raspberries off her hands. They had a washing machine and dryer so we decided to do the washing and also do a spring clean of the van inside and out. We don’t often get the opportunity to do it so have to when we are able to – as Scot really wanted to sit in the sun and read his book, sometimes this has to take second place to chores. The people here have a large country garden that they seem to share the responsibility for. In the morning one of the older guys was into the garden closest to us digging out the old raspberry bushes. From what we have seen the Lithuanians love their gardens and their soil looks very rich.
