We breakfasted at our nice hotel. Tracey had extra leather with her Lithuanian omelette, Miles had additional rubber. Accompanying the egg confections, were lettuce, slices of orange, gerkins and half a tin of peas each....! Hmmmm, the orange juice was nice.
We got away at the slightly sprightly (I'm a poet and I don't know it...) time of 09:00 to blue skies with WARM SUNSHINE. Where will this end?
Our plan today is to knock out 50 or so miles to Kedainia, Lithuania. This town is described as 'one of the oldest in Lithuania' dating back to the 13th century. Lucky it was in our way really as we can't claim to have hand picked it!
We rejoined the main A10-E67, again due south and complete with nasty headwind as per the last few days. Traffic much lighter and glorious sunshine.
Shortly we passed an aeroplane themed motel. That is a motel with several ageing planes from the Soviet era plonked outside. We tucked this away in our 'unusual themes' file along with the bell themed services we came across in Finland.
We battled against the wind and ground out the miles into Panevezys at around the 30 mile mark.
We called into the Tourist Info bureau for accommodation info about our days destination then spent a delightful hour or so in a pavement café drinking coffee and eating our daily ration of CAKE.
All too soon, we were back in the saddle when we abandoned the main highway for a secondary road that led to our ultimate destination.
What followed was the best cycling of the trip so far. Lovely scenery, gently rolling hills in lovely open countryside, almost zero traffic and warm sun. We were even able to forgive the evil sh!t who was supplying the headwind for his misdemeanours.
Stopped for an ice lolly and bottle of pop mid afternoon at Krekenava, middle of nowhere, Lithuania.
Arrived into Kedainia late afternoon having added 61 miles to our tally and it felt like it.
Rolled through the extended suburbs to the Old Town and another Info Bureau for more accommodation details.
Picked a nice hotel very nearby, booked in and settled down to the Tour de France. In case our readers (assuming they haven't dozed off yet) think we've gone soft, we haven't found any camping grounds in Latvia or Lithuania (so far).
A very nice dinner was had at the other 'very nice hotel' nearby. That'll be the one with the Scottish theme due to the residence of a number of drunken Glaswegian's back in the 17th century. Happily, deep fried anything wasn't on the menu!
Back to hotel for a bit of EuroSport (BTW, this is a TV station and not a euphemism) and some shut eye. On the way back in, nodded to the two nice ladies who'd been hanging around the entrance all night. Wonder what they were up to.....?
Tomorrow, our last day in Lithuania as we plan to end the day a few K's short of the Polish border.
Total today a very pleasant though hard 61 miles and a 150m of ascent. Total trip 1471 miles.
More Southerly ramblings to follow.
Back soon. Miles & Tracey.
