During the drive on rural roads thru Lithuania, multiple times, I saw trees that looked like the ones in the picture. First, I thought those clumps were birds’ nests. Then I realized they are not. My friend mentioned that this is a result of some kind of disease in the tree.

Does anybody know what this is all about?

With all due apologies to Robert Frost, I suggested to my friend – “Gintautas, today, let’s take only rural roads. We will avoid all the highways.” My friend was excited by that. Apparently he has not done that in a long time. He mapped out all our destinations choosing only the rural, bucolic roads. Many of those roads, he mentioned would be a first time for him too.

Saw some incredible beauty of the countryside of Lithuania. The clouds were constantly overcast. I can only imagine how much more beautiful it would be in summer.

One thing – Lithuanians have a very high sense of civic duty. Went thru nearly 400 kms of rural roads. Did not see a single piece of trash. Anywhere!!

There is another interesting fact about Nida (other than you can land up in Russia if you are not looking where you are going). There is a nudist beach here.

Not exactly recommended on a day like this.

Not likely to see a sign like this too often either!!

Look at how it has already flooded the cycling and walking path. But that fury is nothing compared to the Russian fury we will face if we walked a mere 2 kms to that land mass you see. That is Russia!!

In case you are wondering, that is actually not the mainland of Russia. It is the exclave of Kaliningrad that is part of Russia. We are at Nida – the furthest we can go before entering Russian territory.

Forgot to mention in previous posts… the name of the Dunes is Dead Dunes. Here is the North View.

Try zooming in to the top of the sandline. You can clearly see a foot of sand dust being kicked up by the unbearably cold and strong wind! We did not spend too much time there. Like I said, it was just too frigid and sand was being kicked all over our face. But we did reach the top. It is a good thing we stopped there. A few false steps and we would be tumbling down the sand dune side to the icy cold Baltic waters before we could cry “Uncle”!

The wind is just making us miserable. The temperature is 0 degree C. There is no sun. And the wind is howling at around 30kmph. But when we turn back, we get a clear view of the Baltic Sea on the other side of the island! Very serene!!

You can see the sharp cliffs off the sand dunes. We are still not high enough to look behind and see over the tree tops for a peek into the Baltic Sea on the other side.