The Amber Coast

It's funny how much work a vacation can become, especially when you add looking for a job and wedding planning into the mix. Late on Sunday evening I returned with Vaida and her parents from a trip to the Baltic Sea. During that one weekend trip, we traveled nearly the entire width of Lithuania, from Vilnius to the small resort town of Šventoji, just 7km south of the Latvian border. Apparently, Lithuanian resorts are among the most expensive in Europe, and we only managed the occasion thanks to a company holiday for Vaida's dad and all employees at his job. I have been trying since Monday to get caught up on this, and have finally settled on writing most of it from my iPod speeding south at 100 + km/h back to Vilnius from an entirely different outing.

Our Destination: The stormy Baltic Sea

On Friday, as early as after work as we could manage it, we all loaded into the Mercedes and set out for the Amber Coast. The company sponsors buses to the resort but her family abandoned that part of the experience after a particularly colorful incident years ago involving other employees and their guests, alus (beer) and/or водка (vodka),  Russian music, and dancing in the isles of the 4+ hour ride to the sea. The weather that week was ending up a fairly significant heat wave, and going swimming in the 50-60 degree (F) Baltic Sea sounded far more inviting than intimidating. However, the closer we got to the sea, the colder and greyer it got.

Near Klaipeda, the northern-most non-freezing port in Europe, we saw a great multitude of motorcycles, as it seems this weekend coincided with a major European rally. One part of their festivities included something to do with a fairly large single-engine plane, but it disappeared into the low-hanging clouds at only about 200 feet of elevation. Further on through the fog, a oil drilling rig emerged, about which I will make a brief note about in a different post. A mere 5-10 minutes later, a series of wind turbines became faintly visible through the mist, noticeably smaller than their American cousins.

Even 10-15 km from the resort town of Palanga, locals stand out with
signs trying to pick up tenants for the weekend.

Then, as we neared the resort region, I was very surprised to see dozens of people and cars lining the road, all advertising rooms for rent in Lithuanian, Russian, and even a few in English. It seems that it must be at least a halfway profitable endeavor for locals to try to rent out their rooms to any gullible tourists they can snag on their way into the village proper. Vaida and I conspired to come back at some point during the weekend and inquire about rooms, once in English, once in Lithuanian, to see just how much they would hike the price up for a (supposedly) wealthy Amerikan (sic), but we never got around to it as they were fairly far out of town and were much fewer once the Friday rush passed them by.

Once settled in at our particular resort, an odd mixture of a medical rehab center and tourist accommodations, we finally made it down to the shore of the Baltic Sea. This region is known as the "Amber Coast," because large quantities of fossilized tree resin lie on the ocean floor off the coast of the neighboring Russian province of Kaliningrad. After a storm, you can pick chunks of amber out of mats of decomposing swamp grass shaken free from the ocean floor, but unfortunately there hadn't been any rough seas as of late. But speaking of rough seas, between the heavy fog on the shore and blustery winds whipping up the waves, the sea looked quite formidable on Friday night. After wading through a few rouge waves lapping up on the shore, it didn't seem quite so cold, but Vaida convinced me to put it off swimming until later.

For the record, chasing little girls with the ball is not the goal of this activity,

she just happened to be standing in the wrong place when it got out of 

control.

On Saturday, we took a detour from the organized company activities, such as log sawing competitions and something to do with a massive "Indiana Jones" style ball (see inset), we headed south to the city of Nida on the Curonian Spit. It took a significant amount of driving aimlessly around Klaipeda to find the ferry, but I have learned a useful tip from Vaida's dad. Even if the big tourbus in front of you looks like it knows where it's going, don't assume it's going to the same destination. My lack of speaking (or reading for that matter) Lithuanian meant I was no help as a navigator, but eventually we found the ferry dock to cross the harbor.

Continuing the tradition of expensive resorts, to even reach the city of Nida from Klaipeda requires almost 50 litas (1 Lita=.42 USD) for a 5 minute crossing, and another 20 litas for the automated toll gates which took at least 15 minutes to negotiate. Though we didn't see them, this coastal region is inhabited by wild boars and at one time it belonged to Germany (I don't believe these two facts are related, but you never know). The town of Nida boasts unique architecture more evocative of a german hamlet than a coastal Baltic town, but quite beautiful all the same. Had the rain held off, we might have taken a boat tour of the inland side of the Spit, but we had to content ourselves for a while dodging between shops to wait out the wettest of the weather.  

At the extensive Saules Laikrodis (Nida Sundial):

 minus the Sun.

After the rain passed, we climbed to the highest point in the region, which is adorned with a quite unique Sundial. Since sundials generally require the sun, we did not have the good fortune of seeing it actually at work, but as a concept, it is quite elegant and impressive. Decorated with ancient runes, the dial is an imposing monument by itself, coupled with its practical application of not only telling the time, but also the date. This, however, is the second dial, as a hurricane toppled the original a few years ago, and a few of the larger fragments still lay on the ground around it. Also, from here there is a commanding view of the sea, and of extensive dunes stretching down to the shore, covering Stone Age settlements from ages past. 


Before leaving, I acquired a special piece of art work from a Museum/Gallery featuring Lithuania's most distinctive regional product, amber. Of course, I would love to have bought the 15-20 inch long model of a Viking Ship in full sail, made entirely of amber, but I never did even find out how much it cost, and I am doubt selling a kidney on the black market would cover it. So instead, I settled on a very small, but exquisitely carved ežiukas, or hedgehog. I have yet to see a wild ežiukas, though I have heard many stories about the mischievous fellow, and there will be a post about him in the future I suspect. I will post pictures eventually, but as he is very small, I need to take special care to get a good macro photo with decent lighting.


In the evening, back in Šventoji, Vaida and I finally made a plunge into the Baltic Sea, which didn't prove to be nearly as cold as I expected. I still wouldn't want to have to spend hours at a time in it, but with my wetsuit, it was quite reasonable. I do admire Vaida's boldness to come swimming as well with just a regular bathing suit, though as we left her lips were looking a bit purple. For some reason, her dad seemed very interested in warming us up with some of his Bulgarian brandy, but none of us drank nearly enough to make an appreciable difference in the bottle, which as I understand is several years old already. 

Just a few of the many kite-boarders in the Baltic Sea.

The rest of our time at the Baltic Sea included watching the many sailboats, kiteboards, and jetskiers enjoying the water. It is not uncommon in the US to see numerous kites flying at the beach, but I have never seen so many attached to people in water. Another common amusement is little pedal powered carts which can be rented from kiosks downtown. However, they seem like a complete waste of money as they are nowhere near as efficient as bicycles, and only serve to clog the narrow streets even more. On that note, driving in Europe is definitely an adventure, with narrow streets, fast drivers, and liberal interpretations regarding parking in oncoming lanes, backing up on exit ramps, and weaving through whatever interesting obstacles the region presents.

Approaching yet another village with the high spires of the church visible
for miles away.

On the way home, we wound our way through some of the more indirect roads home, beautiful tree-lined highways through rural countryside, mostly paralleling the border with the Russian province of Kaliningrad. Near the largest river in Lithuania, the Nemunas, a number of small towns occupying the bluffs of the ancient river valley, while the floodplains are filled with fields and gardens. Millennia ago, this valley would have been filled by a much larger river draining glaciers from an ancient ice age. Along our route, some of the towns almost seem like copies of the previous one, with the spires of giant churches high on the top of the hill, with the rest of the town sprawled along the steep side of the bluff.  

This is really a school?! Those poor kids. Imagine how hard they must
struggle to learn in such a homely structure...

These beautiful agricultural valleys were also home to a few palaces, structured something like castles, and centuries old, but built more as large manors for wealthy lords, rather than designed for defense. One particular site we stopped at actually serves as a school now, and I have to admit a twinge of jealously for these students who get to study in an ancient castle. 

It was late in the evening when we finally returned to Grigiškės, and we have been busy every since, but more about those events to come soon. 

Posted from: Grigiškės District, Vilinus, Lithuania on June 18th, 2011