“We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.”
George Orwell
Friday
Our last day in Poland as we push north in search for cool weather.
Destination – Kulautuva, Lithuania.
It is a buffet breakfast which means we skip lunch.
As someone who eats enough for two, and I need to eat enough for two meals at breakfast, simple mathematics tells me to eat the equivalent of six servings.
An early departure.
More agriculture. More forests.
We pull over and try to capture the beauty of the Polish lake district, but you never can.
“Photographs are a way of imprisoning reality…One can’t possess reality, one can possess images–one can’t possess the present but one can possess the past.”
Susan Sontag
We cross into Lithuania. You expect some change, but of course there isn’t. Land does not care where humans drawn line on maps.
There is a roundabout not far from Kaunas, near the tiny village of Pagìrès. This is where the car stopped.
Died. The light on the dash tells ‘drivetrain failure’.
As the traffic builds up behind, I put the car in neutral and tell Shell she will jump in the driver’s seat and steer us around the corner. I get out, and with the help of the kind driver behind me, we push the car through the roundabout and off the road.
Shell makes a call to the hire company and we are promptly informed that we are not permitted to take the car into Lithuania.
Two things occur to me. Firstly, when I hired the car I mentioned to the salesperson I was driving to Estonia. The only way to get to Estonia is though Lithuania and Latvia. All she had to say was that I would have to pay the tolls.
Secondly, did the hire company kill our car while we were driving?
Yes they did.
Big Brother was watching.
“Winston Smith: Does Big Brother exist?
George Orwell
O’Brien: Of course he exists.
Winston Smith: Does he exist like you or me?
O’Brien: You do not exist.”
The hire company agrees to turn the car back on if we return to Poland.
It was nice to see you Lithuania.
The drive back to Poland is the same drive to Lithuania.
Shell finds alternative accommodation in the holiday town Giżycko.
Giżycko straddles two freshwater lakes, Lake Niegocin and Lake Kisajno. It has a holiday feel and our apartment is nice.
We stroll to Chumry Browar for dinner. The lakes make you feel like you are on the coast. Yachts and a sudden desire to drink beer in the warm sun.
As we order dinner, frito miso z owocami morza, mixed battered seafood to share, an Aperol Spritz for Shell and a Cumulus Fruktus Pale Ale, it occurs to me that this is not the first time our plans have been altered and the resulting detour has turned out to be special.
When we were touring Portugal on the bikes, my pedal came off just outside of Olhāo. We were forced to spend a few days in what turned out to be one of the nicest port towns in Portugal.
https://nowpleasenow.com/day-45-the-road-to-spain/
Giżycko has a similar feel. Ruined plans becoming a special experience.
After a few more beers we order dinner. Shell opting for a refreshing change of pace, oven baked trout, while I am in beach mode, a little drunk, too much sun and take on the fish and chips.
“Vicinity to the sea is desirable, because it is easier to do nothing by the sea than anywhere else, and because bathing and basking on the shore cannot be considered an employment but only an apotheosis of loafing.”
E. F. Benson
We head home and start thinking about tomorrow and which way we will go.
Germany.
North into Sweden.
Maybe.
