Rest day today - Marijampole, Lithuania.
Slow start to the day followed by a surprisingly (based on recent experience) decent breakfast at the hotel.
Did a few ablutions/chores, dodged the rain showers and went for a walk into town around lunch time.
Called into the local Pizza joint for late lunch. Miles, being a pig, ordered a 'Maxi' that was almost the same size as the crap British Leyland car of the same name!! Suffice to say, a large proportion was boxed for emergency dinner rations to be consumed later.
Quick stroll around the local shopping centre to admire the best supermarket ever seen by Miles or Tracey.
Now we're not really supermarket aficionados but one that sells live Carp for customers to select gets our vote as a good one. Reminded us of choosing live Garoupa in the seafood restaurants of Hong Kong. Aaaah, nostalgia.....
Back to the hotel to see Hamilton win the German Grand Prix followed by more dossing....
Evening Scrabble followed in the local restaurant/pub which Miles won by a very convincing margin. Honours now 4-3 to Miles.
Finished a very slothful day by watching Rossi cane Casey Stoner's bum in the Moto GP race from California.
What a pleasant day off and as Rossi would say 'we're very very appy' and are ready and raring to go tomorrow.
Bring on Poland!
Monday 21 July 2008
Up and at em earlier than usual, must be ready to go!
Plan today; Marijampole, Lithuania to Augustow, Poland. Roughly 55 miles.
Another superb breakfast at the hotel, so good we can now forgive Lithuania for it's earlier breakfast time misdemeanours.
Hit the road unusually early i.e pre 09:00. We must have been spurred into action by a pair of Austrian cycle tourists staying at the same hotel
We met these two yesterday evening and exchanged war stories (oops!) whilst one of them seemed to think mastication should be a spectator sport (uuugh!).
The Austrian's got away from the hotel half an hour or so before us but we caught them and left them in our wake within 10 miles or so. Us competitive? Nah, surely not...
Stopped for the usual mid morning break at our favourite roadside services; Statoil.
Here our daily ration of CAKE was consumed. The first instalment was a little disappointing though normal standards were reinstated by the second helping!
Caked up, we hit the road again and returned to dice with the HGV's...
Presently, the Lithuanian/Polish border hove into view and we entered our sixth Country of the trip. Bye bye Baltic's, hello Eastern Europe.
Again, there was a complete absence of formality as we passed from Europe to Europe. However, there was plenty of evidence of how it was in the Soviet controlled days including watch towers, border fences etc.
Our first port of call in Poland was the town of Suwalki where we stopped again for a coffee and called into Tourist Info (IT as it's funkily known now) for accommodation details for tonight. We also spotted our first Polish Plumber, presumably on leave from the UK......
Looks like we might be able to get back onto the camping track as there seems to be a reasonable camping infrastructure in Poland. Unfortunately, the sites are not shown on the maps we have so we'll have to play it by ear.
Our caffeine levels replenished, we hit the A8-E67 again heading for Augustow.
En route, we had another 'strange themes' experience when we passed a rocket themed restaurant surrounded by deactivated missiles. We also spotted a tent pitched on top of a car (deliberately so it would seem) strange lot these Poles.....
A further brief stop was made for the customary afternoon lolly and we rolled into Augustow really early on account of the combined effects of a lovely tailwind and our gaining an hour due to the time difference with the Baltic's.
Biked straight into the centre, found the IT bureau by complete chance, and then (dodging a mahoosive rain shower) biked straight out again to our third choice of hotel. This involved a bit of off roading as the road became an unmade sandy track. There followed the 'save of the century' as the front wheel washed out in the sand and we, somehow, managed to get the old girl straightened up and back to pointing and going in a forwards direction....
To our surprise, we seem to be on a bit of a tourist trade route here and the hotels are doing much better business than in Lithuania.
After a shower and tidy up, we taxied back into town for dinner and multiple delicious Espresso's then retired for the evening to our room feeling somewhat content with the world.
Total today a tailwind fuelled though HGV infested 60 miles and 335m of ascent. Total trip 1598 miles.
More Southerly ramblings to follow.
Back soon. Miles & Tracey.
