Day 75: Vilnius to Aukstadvaris

September 14, 2024

Foggy Ride out of Vilnius

“I hope the plumbing is better in our accommodations tonight,” Rachel says as we start to ride out of Vilnius. Pogo Hostel has plumbing problems in spite of that, we had a good enough room and you can’t beat the location.

It has rained again last night and this morning the clouds hang very low. The humidity is sky high and small drops are falling from the fog. We ride partly on the sidewalk and partly down the middle of the street where the booths of the Nation Fair are closed with shrink wrap around the tents. This went on for 1.5kms, then Patrick needed the tablet to navigate us out of the city. The route took many twists and turns on bike paths to avoid the large intersections of roads and at one point we are riding through a park.

"Take a picture of that building," Patrick asks as he is checking the tablet once again to navigate out of the city.

At 6km we see the bike route signs for Trakai on a bike path and after 10kms we are to turn off onto the road to Lentvaris. At the junction, there is a MacDonald’s and we stop for a second breakfast. The road to Lentvaris is narrow and a few hefty hills, but we finally pick up a bike path that takes us to Trakai. There we cross a wooden bridge and see the Traku salos pilis Castle and the associated zoo of tourism. We stop for a cup of coffee by a lady selling bread. When she saw us looking for a place to lean our bikes she’s points to the side of her stand.

Navigating across the railroad tracks.....and

The next destination is the town Semeliskes. When we reach town we stop at the grocery store for something cold to drink. Patrick found unrefrigerated Lemon Tea. There is a very nice old church in the center of town. Even though it is not very warm, the humidity is very high. Also, today for the first time it seems since we entered the Baltic States we have a tailwind. It gets us down the road, but takes away the cooling airflow you would otherwise have. From here we turn onto another road that takes us into Aukstadvaris. We stop at the store for tonight’s dinner.

First cyclist we see in a long time, and for sure the first to talk because he was stopped at the side of the road, and Patrick stopped. Matheus is Polish and on a loop tour.

Grocery store in Aukstadvaris. The big boxes are how the locals receive packages.

The last bit to our accommodation is on a roughly corrugated unsealed road for 3.5km. The driveway to the place is also with big rocks. The lady is friendly, Patrick checks out the room and has a choice since we are the only guests tonight. The place is called Villa Cheval, it is a newly built large building with seven guest rooms, a large central room and a kitchen. Very nice, but also remote.

We chose it because it worked well distance wise in our route staging. Draw-back is that there is no restaurant nearby. We brought crackers, cheese, smoked salmon and herring.

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Today's ride: 72 km (45 miles)
Total: 3,758 km (2,334 miles)

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