Gunnar Rundgren på resa / on tour

There are many positive things to say about travelling on the Lithuanian road.
The quality of the tarmac is decent, even if it is often a bit uneven towards the edges.
Roads have very good signs and in addition there are information charts posted in all major towns where hotels, restaurants (if any!) and sites are indicated.
There are plenty of country roads with a good top that are ideal for cycling. The traffic is decent. Drivers are particularly considerate to pedestrians. Going by bike you can chose if you want to be a vehicle or a pedestrian, in the most viscious crossings I normally convert myself to a pedestrian.

The bigger towns also have toursit information offices, where they mostly have a basic English knowledge. They give you information about where there are places to stay, and even call on your behalf if you ask them. Most of the time you get a tourist map of the area.

Parking habits are not so good, and what is really frustrating is how cars drives though pools of water in full speed with no consideration of the splash they make. It can easily be a 10-15 meter spray, and for me on the bike that is certainly not pleasant, as it has been raining for two days.

Food and accommodation have been a lot more problematic than I had expected. I guess it is partly because I travel the smaller roads, but even there it is surprising how big distances there are between the caf'es and in the end the cafes only have beer to drink and nothing at all to eat. There are plenty of small shops though where you can buy some stuff to eat. However under these conditions you appreciate to sit inside and eat and not at the road side. Accommodation is also problematic and you see no signs for "room" or "zimmer" anywhere.

I am in Vilnius now as explained in the Swedish posting. Got soaking wet and exhasusted yesterday from strong head wind and quite some rain. So today I "cheat" and loaded me and the bike on a bus to Vilnius as the rain pours down. So in total I have only done 270 km, but I am in no direct hurry. I am awfully proud of keeping off the tobacco, the biggest achievment of this trip so far. Of course it is still early to say I did it, but five days, is not bad. Those who never were addicts can probably not understand it, but others will.

Vilnius is considerably more expensive than the country side. Here the same beer that cost 50 Euro cents in the small bars up country costs 2-3 Euros. You might get the impression that I only consume beers from this, but it is a standardised products for which it is easy to compare prices. For food there are so many things to consider......