Monday 14 September
We pack up the van and switch the fridge to battery, of which there is little power left, but we hope there is enough to keep the food cool until we get to a campsite to power up again.
We head out of Vilnius city. A lovely place and was absolutely worth visiting.
We head south to a little village called Paneriai which is where the Nazi’s did most of their killing of the Lithuanian jews plus some Russians and others they wanted to exterminate numbers around the 100,000 but no one really knows exactly how many people died. This village is only about 10kms out of the city centre and when you stop here you can understand why they used this place. It is on the train line, far enough from the city, but in the middle of a large wooded area. We had to park at the train station and walk about 1km to the memorial. There are about 5 pits that they used to kill the people and a pit for burning the bodies when eventually they decided they needed to hide the evidence.
We hadn’t realised but the museum here was closed on a Monday, but that was ok as we could walk around the pits without any other tourists there, it was just us and that made it very real. It had that same eerie feeling where you felt like you had to look behind you just in case you were the next one to go into the pit. Sounds weird, but although I want to see these places as they represent what happened and the history that I am interested in learning about, I feel I want to run away from this place when we arrive. In a forest like this you would normally hear birds or other noises, but this place was silent. There were no birds or other animals and there was no beauty. Fear, horror, terror is what I feel here.
As we head south out of Lithuania, I think of all the little things we observed in the Baltic countries that were different. Cows are not enclosed in paddocks they are chained to spikes in the ground like we do to dogs at picnics, quite funny really. Lithuanians are particularly keen gardeners and you see their little gardens often in a community area away from the houses and then you see them on the side of the roads selling their produce to make a few bucks. Cats rule here, they are everywhere and dogs would be scared. The Baltic cities are all amazing and well worth the trip to see them. Lithuania would be my favourite for countryside. Farming is huge in Lithuania and people try to keep their yards looking nice even if their houses are quite run down on the outside. We think the freedom that people feel here since the occupation finished is very palpable and shows in all that they do. In the whole of the Baltic countries we didn’t experience road rage in a huge way nor that many problematic drivers as we had been lead to believe. We would come back here in a heartbeat.
We drive south over the border into Poland and see similar little plots of peoples gardens they are tending to and it looks like a neat country similar to Lithuania. We know we aren’t going to be able to get too far so we stop in a town called Augustow which is on a lake. We pull into the marina and talk to the guy. We didn’t have any Polish zlotys and we had not known what the exchange rate was so the guy wanted to charge us 60zlotys but he said he would take 25euro. What we didn’t know was the exchange rate between the two currencies meant he charged us double euro which we paid as we didn’t have anything else….bastard taking advantage like that.
Anyway as per normal we were the only ones at the marina staying and they had to give us our own key to the handicapped toilet and shower. Although they told us they had wifi it wouldn’t work for us – so what’s new.
In the morning before we took off I had made the decision that we needed to go into the town and find the information centre and buy a sim for Poland so that at least we could find places to stay – freebies preferably and of course some zlotys. So we biked into the town and what a lovely town it was – the small kind that I really like as they are more personal. We found an ATM, got money and then found a T-Mobile. 5 zloty it cost for a sim for the tablet for 1GB – $2aud, so cheap. We had a bit of a look around and then had a coffee at a lovely café recommended by the information place staff. We biked back to the marina and packed up the van and headed out of town. Driving out confirmed what a lovely place it was – the kind you just want to spend a bit more time having a look around but unfortunately we don’t have the time. Whilst we had been parked in the marina we had looked at the front tyres and they didn’t seem to be wearing well and one front tyre was ridged and worn badly so we determined that once we got to Gdansk we would find a tyre place and replace both front tyres. In Belgium they reckoned we would get another 10-15,000 miles out of them and we had already done 8,000 miles – 13,000 kms so it was worth getting them done.
We hit the road – we had about 390kms of highway to drive before we got to Gdansk so it would be a long drive. We arrived in a little settlement out of Gdansk called Stegna which is right on the beach but also surrounded by forest. The forest goes right up to the beach dunes. The campground was lovely and the owner couldn’t have been more helpful to us. We stayed two nights and we did our washing and went to the beach and Scot had a swim – of course (in the Baltic sea). The beach, unlike Scandinavia was very clean and there were lots of birds and shells showing an abundance of sea life. There were a few people around on the beach sun bathing but no one was swimming as the sea was a bit cold. We had a coffee and then biked into the little town of Stegna which was very small. We got some fresh berries and vowed to come back and get some of the farm veges on our way out. We got the lady of the camp to phone the tyre place 45 minutes drive away to see if they could fit us in the following day on our way out which was fine by them. There were a lot of stray cats at this camp which seemed to get their food from the campers who felt sorry for them. They were quite skittish and didn’t want patting but were happy to receive any scraps we had. Washing finished, bed remade, ironing done (yes I bought a travel iron and I iron my pillow slips and hankies) we had tea and an early night.
We got up quite early and had a walk along the beach which was so nice. This is our last seaside walk for a while as we will be inland for a while. We headed off for the tyre place just outside of Gdansk. When we got out of the van when we pulled up our tyres were pointing outward and I saw the inside of one side and metal threads were all sticking out of the inside of the tyre. I nearly died of fright. Here we were travelling at highway speed for 390kms two days ago and had that tyre blown we would not have survived. My god we have some amazing angel looking over us. The other tyre was just as dreadful. They guy in the tyre place was a bit shocked I think, but they had worn where we couldn’t see them and we had done the right thing by making a decision to replace them when we thought they weren’t that bad. Anyway we sat for about 3 hours whilst they put new tyres on, did an alignment and we also got them to change the oil and filter since it was nearly at 10,000 miles.
It was late when we got back on the road so we didn’t make it very far and stopped for the night at Znin. We went to a campground – empty as usual – but it was such a half star place. The kitchen was out of the 60’s and the showers and toilets were unbelievable, but you deal with what they have and it’s only one night. The surrounds were old and quite run down as well.
The next day we decided we would drive over to Germany and find a camper store and see if they had a van hinge to replace our broken one. I had found a store that looked quite good, so we headed over west to Frandfurt an der Oder. It took most of the day as the roads are quite slow. Poland is a very pretty country with lovely treed countryside and cute villages. A little run down in a lot of places but still a lovely country. We found out that the road rules in Poland aren’t followed too well. On roads with a single lane each way and a small side area for pulling over vehicles are expected to drive in the pull over lane so others can pass when cars are coming towards them. And if the car passing can’t fit in their own lane the vehicle coming towards them has to pull right over in their side lane so all 3 vehicles can fit side by side. We watched as huge trucks would overtake someone not caring if cars were coming the other way or not. Hilarious for us watching, but not so when all of a sudden you are confronted with a truck coming toward you and you are expected to pull over as far as you can out of their way, but that is how they drive and you either play the game or lose! On the highways heading out of Poland there were heaps of young girls in skimpy gear standing on the side of the road either near truck stops or in areas that trucks could pull over. We called them the truck roots on the truck routes. There were heaps of them and I guess because there are literally thousands of trucks that pass each day they are bound to make enough money to live on. You can tell that Europe moves most of it’s products by truck rather than train as there are just so many of them.
We arrived at the German camper shop in the late afternoon and asked about hinges. The guy really wasn’t’ interested in helping us, it was late Friday afternoon and he really couldn’t be bothered with us which was a pity as we had travelled a long way, but they had nothing at all. We left feeling very disappointed.
We then had to find somewhere for the night so we travelled down a bit further south in Germany.
We needed to stop at a supermarket and as we drove through this small town I commented to Scot that it looked very ethnic, quite unlike Germany. We saw a supermarket beside a McDonalds so we pulled into the car park and had a look around us. We realised that in the small wooded area beside this shopping centre there was a group of maybe 40 refugees living there. They were sitting and walking all through the car park and were looking very ominous. In amongst the pristine countryside of Germany these refugees had accumulated the most disgusting pile of rubbish strewn everywhere in the wood (There were rubbish bins not being used). I was horrified. Here these people are wanting to be given a new life in a new country and they treat it with such disrespect and contempt. A lot of the guys had phones, were smoking and drinking and obviously were having McDonalds. If they are so hard done by then how come they can afford these things I ask. For me they deserve everything they get if this is how they are going to treat Europe for trying to help them. I would march along with all the others that have around Europe in protest about them coming into Europe. I think they should send them back, the bunch of complete ungrateful assholes!! 28 European states are looking at housing 120,000 refugees yet this is only 20 days worth of immigrants. Funny enough, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and one other don’t want to help because they have no muslim population. They can only see problems. Several of the countries have already put in border controls and Hungary has built a fence. It is not good and as we get nearer the problem areas we aren’t sure what we will be confronted with. There has been rioting etc, so is definitely a concern for us.
We drove straight out of this carpark after locking our doors and drove onto a camp ground. They were closed for the night and the gate was closed so we camped outside in the car park for the night for free.
Saturday 19 September
We were up the next morning and headed out early before anyone in the camp ground woke up. They couldn’t do anything about us anyway as we had arrived late and it wasn’t our fault we had to stay outside for the night. We were undecided where we should go next and initially decided we would drive towards Krakow. We got on this road that took us into Poland but the surface was so dreadful we thought it would shake the van to pieces. There was no other road to travel on and we went probably 60kms on this horrendous road – see pictures below. We stopped about midday at McDonalds McCafe for a coffee and at that point we decided we wouldn’t go to Krakow – we would go into Czech Republic first and then go back up into Poland after doing this country. Poland is so big we can’t do all of it. So we headed slightly back the way we came and down into the Czech Republic.
It is a lot hillier in this country and for the first time we headed up and down windy hills. It is very pretty countryside here. We had to buy a vignette on the way in. This is a sticker for your windscreen which pays for the road tax/tolls for the period of time you are in the country. We bought one for 10 days. The police are very active here in checking for them and if you get caught without one the fines can be quite severe.
We decided to camp at the marina on a little island in the middle of the river near Prague city or Praha as the Czechs call it. We arrived at the camp about 4pm.
