One of the things about European countries is that they tend to be relatively small. And that means, you can often bounce off the country borders. My route took me from 30km (20 miles) off the Belarusian border to 40 km (25 miles) off the Latvian border to 2 km (1.5 miles) off the Russian border.

After touring the castle, Gintautas and I decided to try out some local food. Went inside a place and checked out the menu for Kibinai. Apparently, Trakai island area is famous for this. Well, the surprise element in the menu was Samosa!!

We ordered both so that we could try out each other country’s food. Turns out Kibinai is very similar to empanadas that you can get in Spain or Portugal. I remember enjoying some great ones in Argentina. I had the Kibinai with local chicken broth.

Gintautas became a fan of samosas. However, this was a bit different from what a typical Indian samosa would be. The big difference was that the stuffing was not primarily potato – it was some vegetables. Which is a surprise. Since potato is fairly common here – especially in traditional foods like Cepelenia.

The one thing I could not get is the famous pink soup (Šaltibarščiai) of Lithuania. Every restaurant that I enquired in asked me to come back in summer!! (It is a cold soup made from beet and buttermilk, I believe)

But I guess not trip to Lithuania is complete without visiting the Trakai Island Castle. (construction on this started in the 14th century!!)

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.