Exploring the surrounding surroundings: On a quest for the 'Mythical Stone'!!!

September 29, 2013

The first, and pretty much only, place for me to visit near Vilnius was Trakai, where I was told I would find a very nice castle on an island. On the way to Trakai I saw a rather worrying signpost. At the turn off for the road that I planned to take to Belarus, the words Belarus and Grodno were crossed out by big orange lines. I decided that this was probably bad news and subsequent research confirmed it. The border crossing between Lithuania and Belarus that I planned to take was closed because of 'repairs on the Belarus side.' Who closes a whole international border for 'repairs'?! Belarus, that's who! This was a pretty major headache, because my visa would only be valid for the 9th and 10th of October and I couldn't collect my visa until the 7th in Vilnius. One and a half days would have been enough to get to the border crossing in Lithuania, but now I was going to have to think of a new plan. There was another border crossing closer to Vilnius but if I took that on the morning of the 9th I would have to cycle 150km to get to my hotel in Grodno by evening and if I had any problems at the border I would be screwed. The other option was to cycle from Lithuania into Poland and then take the border crossing from Poland into Belarus that was very close to Grodno. It seemed like the best strategy, but would mean covering an extraordinary distance on the 8th to get to Poland. I was determined not to let Belarus beat me though!

Trakai was quite nice, in a boring kind of way. Here are some pictures:

Myself, in front of the castle of Trakai

A piece of exercise equipment that would not pass British health and safety laws, at Trakai

There was a manor estate on the other side of the lake which I went to explore. There are many, many things that are not allowed on the grounds of this manor estate

The manor was too boring to take a picture of. Here's a hot air balloon instead, over the castle of Trakai

I spent a couple of days at Trakai, mostly because I didn't really have anywhere else to go. I looked at a tourist map of the surrounding area and there were a very large number of sights to see, but on closer inspection they were mostly churches and hills. Lithuania was clearly trying very hard to encourage tourism, but was struggling to balance this with the fact that there was nothing of any actual interest to see anywhere. I did visit one of these hills. It was a hill. It had an information board at the bottom saying it was a hill. It had steps to the top which I climbed up. There was a bit of a view of a lake blocked by some trees. As attractions go I gave it a 2/10.

I just included this because I thought it was really funny what Lithuanians consider to be romantic

This cow was really giving me some lip. The cows were chained to the ground, presumably because that is cheaper than building a fence. I gave him some lip back. He had attitude, I'm telling you

One thing on the tourist map did catch my eye, however. It was a 'Mythical Stone' and to get to it I would have to go off on some very small back roads. I was suddenly excited and very happy and set off on a major quest to find the 'Mythical Stone.' The quest took me on sandy tracks through fields and forests. I had to contend with many dangers on this quest, such as being chased by 'Mystical Dogs' and avoiding 'Perilous Pot-holes.' I was following the 'Tourist Treasure Map' as best I could and I was sure I was on the right road, but the 'Mythical Stone' never appeared. It wasn't where it was supposed to be. I went on a bit further. I was very hungry but I carried on still. But nothing. I sat down on a big pile of logs that were at the side of the road to have something to eat, disappointed at the apparant failure of the quest to find the 'Mythical Stone.' 'Wait a minute,' I thought, 'mythical means, no surely, they wouldn't, would they, I mean, it must exist, musn't it.

I was busy drawing up my letter to the Lithuanian Tourist Board threatening legal action for wasting my time when a big logging truck appeared and stopped next to me. It was clearly here to pick up the logs that I was sitting on, so I got up without finishing my lunch and cycled onwards. Not 200 metres up the road, would you believe it, but I came face to face with the object of my desires. No, not Юлия, it was the infamous 'Mythical Stone!' Well it was more of a large boulder actually. Look, here it is:

I was so happy, but I was also still hungry, so I sat on the 'Mythical Stone' to eat the rest of my lunch. The 'Mythical Stone' may have taken exception to being sat on, however, as I very nearly lost my balance and fell backwards off the top of it, something which would almost certainly have resulted in a broken neck. I decided the 'Mythical Stone' was probably cursed and sat on the grass near it to eat instead.

The rest of my little tour around Lithuania was fairly dull after all the excitement of the quest for the 'Mythical Stone.' I did come to a very nice area around some lakes, which was the prettiest place I saw in Lithuania. And I did meet a very nice family who had cycled toured around Germany, Scandanavia and the Baltics on a similar route to me. The most remarkable thing about this family was that they were cycle tourists and yet they were not German (they were French.) Incredible!

Not highly visible in this picture, but there is a French family there

One other thing to tell you, a rather sad little anecdote about the country really, happened on one of the last evenings before I returned to Vilnius. I was on a quiet country road when a motor scooter approached from the other direction with two guys on it. As they got closer to me the driver turned the bike in my direction and drove directly towards me on the wrong side of the road. This was evidently in a mean attempt to scare me. The only thing was that it wasn't scary at all, because at the moment they did this they arrived at an uphill and, because they were both quite fat and the scooter didn't have a very powerful engine, they weren't moving very fast at all. Of course, my loaded bike can get quite a bit of momentum on the downhills and I was quite confident that all of my bags would give me an edge in a collision, so I turned the tables and accelerated towards them, causing them to be the ones to swerve out of the way! Hooray for me, you stupid fat idiots!

29/09/13 - 43km

30/09/13 - 16km

01/10/13 - 6km

02/10/13 - 39km

03/10/13 - 52km

04/10/13 - 52km (+10km unloaded)

05/10/13 - (10km unloaded)

Today's ride: 208 km (129 miles)
Total: 6,709 km (4,166 miles)

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