Deane & Norm's Motorcycle Trip in
Northern & Eastern Europe and Scandinavia
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Deane & Norm's Motorcycle Trip in Northern & Eastern Europe and Scandinavia |
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July 19, Riga, Latvia - Through Lithuania - to Bialystok, Poland 506 Km (314 Miles) |
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Tonight we are in Bialystok, Poland! (Near Warsaw.) Yes, we went "through" Lithuania, after leaving Latvia, on the way to Poland. So far, the eastern Europe countries have been quite small, in terms of riding in the USA. We got an early start today, because we had quite a long mileage day, and we weren't sure whether slow roads and small villages would make the day too long. The question of open borders in the European countries is still interesting. The border between Latvia and Lithuania was a drive-through, with the old customs / border guard buildings sitting there boarded up. So we just rode through. The only way one would know when the actual border was crossed was a sign that gave some speed limits in Lithuania. Having ridden through Lithuania, as we approached the border between Lithuania and Poland, it looked like it probably had in the past, with the buildings not so obviously empty. Also they had a little maze to get vehicles to the customs / border guard kiosks, and there were three or four tour buses stopped with their people standing around. However, the vehicle path went right through. We slowed down, could find nobody to stop us, so we rode on, into Poland. Here is a map of the country of Lithuania, and we rode from northern border to southern border in less than a day.
Lithuania is very much a agricultural country. The fields were very large, as large as many in the USA.
Where does this wheat field, and the fringes of trees, belong? - Kansas? Oklahoma? Texas? No - Lithuania!! Interesting things that we saw: - The biggest bird in Europe - the Stork. Two storks that Norm and I saw had built nests, one on top of a chimney and one on top of a power pole, We saw the frames of old traditional wind mills, but with the blades taken off. As it turned out, the majority of the road miles were done on good roads, but with terrible roads for a portion of the day. However, for about half of the way we rode on pavement which had bad ruts in it. It would really surprise you with a quick turn of the front wheel, and you had to grab it quickly or it threw you either to or from the oncoming traffic. Norm noticed that some of the trucks we saw had only a single tire on each end of an axle instead of duals on each axel. Tomorrow we ride on through Poland. |
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