For the second night in a row Sarah and I went to the small garden at the rear of Downtown Forest Hostel and Camping for a beer in my case and a very dry, sour Lithuanian cider in Sarah’s. Being a trendy hostel it stocks a range of craft beers and I found on tap a Lithuanian brewed American Indian Pale Ale! I pondered the strange world of globalisation which results in a London brewer in the late 18th century brewing a pale ale which he finds survives the journey to India particularly well giving birth to Indian Pale Ale. This style of beer is quickly popularised and taken up by American brewers in the 19th century. A resurgence of craft beer starts in the 21st century in the US, spreads worldwide and we end up with American IPA being brewed in a Baltic state with its roots going back through America and India to a brewery on the River Thames more than 200 years before.
We made a quick call at LIDL before waving goodbye to Vilnius and pointing Basil north towards the Baltic. Basil is due to have his service in two days in the northern Lithuanian city of Klaipeda, so I have chosen a campsite on the Baltic nearby to stay for a few days.
The road from Vilnius to Klaipeda was as boring as a road could be. But boring is good as far as I am concerned. It means a relaxed drive! Nearly two hundred miles straight north on a very good quality toll free motorway.
As we headed north there was still plenty of forest but also large swathes of high intensity agricultural land. The guide on our tour yesterday told us that agriculture was one of Lithuania’s biggest exports and today we began to understand why.
We are now roughly on the same latitude as Glasgow and Edinburgh but there are still dozens of nesting storks. I am now genuinely interested to see where they stop. I presume the Baltic will mark the edge of their territory, but I will keep a keen eye on telegraph and electricity poles for the first few hours in Finland.
We finally arrived at the Baltic simultaneously with reaching our new campsite Karkles Kospos Camping (55.809795, 21.073702). It is a small (10 pitches) site with full facilities including quick wifi. At €15 a night it is about as cheap as we can expect to find until September. Like most of the sites we have been on since Greece there are some log cabins on site for rental, but the ones on this site are pleasant and modern. We have seen some horrors on other sites!
Basil takes a breather at Karkles Kopos Camping
The Baltic Sea and a sandy beach is only about 5 minutes walk through a pine forest. Sarah has already taken Mabel and Melek for a run. She had just returned and thinks Melek will sleep soundly (when doesn’t he?) because he has run his socks off. It’s our first beach in over two months and both dogs love it, but it’s Melek’s mood which is particularly perked up by the sight of sand.
The Baltic at 7pm. The days are getting longer. Photo courtesy of Sarah