With the rental car to the Memeldelta
In Klaipeda we rented a car, with which we went further south to Memeldelta . To get there by public transport we would have been very slow, because we would have had to change buses several times and the buses don't run very often during the day. With the car we were much more flexible. We rented the car via Check24, booked all possible and necessary insurances directly and were therefore on the safe side. But when we arrived at the address given, there was no rental car station in sight. After a short phone call we were told that the station was located in the middle of a hotel and after asking at the reception we finally found the rental car office. The gentleman was very friendly, but asked us directly if we wanted to add more insurances, because we only had "basic insurances". I was puzzled for a moment but denied it, as I was sure that Check24 had covered everything. Tomek had to show his license as the main driver, a deposit was blocked and then we went to our speedster - to Tomek's bad luck an automatic car (he never drove an automatic before, but did very well!) And then we left the rather chaotic city and went outside into the nature!
The Memel delta is the area where the river "Memel" flows into the Curonian Lagoon. By the way, one of the estuary arms represents another border between Lithuania and Russia (we have it somehow with border areas).
We decided to stay in Rusne for two days. Rusne is a small, rather sleepy village, where there are more storks than inhabitants. Nevertheless, there was a small supermarket and also a new restaurant where we had lunch twice at a very reasonable price. The Memel delta is very pleasant to explore on foot, you walk endlessly along rivers and the peace and quiet is really beautiful! We reactivated our geocaches accounts shortly before and were surprised to see how many are hidden there. So we combined the hikes with searching for caches and were able to log some.
Wir sind bei unseren Wanderungen gerne spontan und halten uns sehr selten an die asphaltierten Wege. Oft finden wir, dass ein Trampelpfad spannend aussieht oder wir probieren es auch mal querfeldein. So war es dementsprechend auch im Memeldelta, wo es vor allem viel unberührte Natur gab. Einmal endete ein Trampelpfad auf einem Feld, wo das Gras uns bis über die Knie ging. Wir dachten uns eigentlich nichts dabei, bis wir bei einer Wanderung von Rusne zu einem Nebendorf mal wieder einen recht ausgeprägten Trampelpfad benutzten. Ich lief vor Tomek und erzählte ihm gerade irgendetwas, bis ich in meinem Augenwinkel auf einmal vor mir etwas entlanghuschen sah: Eine Schlange! Sowohl die Schlange als auch ich erschraken beide total und wir konnten gerade noch sehen, wie sie im Gebüsch verschwand. Tomek konnte dabei erkennen, dass sie eine gelbe Markierung auf dem Kopf hatte. Wir fanden heraus, dass es sich dabei um eine schwarze Kreuzotter handelte, die zwar giftig ist, aber deren Gift nur in einer stärkeren Menge gefährlich ist. Das war ein Erlebnis! Ich muss zugeben, dass ich noch Tage später ein mulmiges Gefühl hatte, wenn wir durch hohes Gras liefen und wir dadurch wahrscheinlich auch ein bisschen vorsichtiger geworden sind.
After the return the big trouble
At the end of our time in Rusne, we brought the rental car back to Klaipeda and from there we took the bus to Kaunas. When we arrived at the rental car stand, there was no employee to take the car. But that did not surprise us very much, because the employee had told us before that he might not be there, so we should just drop the key into the mailbox. Since we did not have an accident with the car and we did not notice any damage, we did as discussed and went to the bus station.
Less than 20 minutes later Tomek received an e-mail that after we returned the car, damage was found, a big scratch on the underside which was also photographed. On the photos we could only see dirt (it had been raining during our rental period and the ground was very muddy), but no scratches. We were very annoyed about this, because it all sounded like a scam to take money off us. But since we had taken out an insurance policy, I made a short phone call to the employees of Check24 who advised us, since we didn't take any photos when we returned the car, to simply agree to the damage (maybe something really happened, we just missed it/ didn't notice it) and we will get the money back from the insurance company! In the end we had to pay ~450€ in advance, but it was refunded to our account really fast. Even though this can always happen, it spoiled our desire to rent a car for now.
Sightseeing Kaunas
We went by bus to Kaunas, the second largest city in Lithuania. The trip took about 3.5 hours, but the buses in Lithuania are all equipped with free Wifi and power sockets, so that we could keep ourselves entertained. Maybe it's also interesting to know that the bus ride cost us a total of 31€ (for both together, which is cheap compared to germany). We had arranged with our landlady that someone would pick us up from the bus station and so we also met someone of our age who asked us into his rickety car and told us that he had a room upgrade for us - a room that is located directly in the old town and is even better than the one we booked. We agreed, because we thought we could just take a look at it. He was also really nice and we talked the whole trip about Lithuania, the differences to Germany and that he would actually like to study in Holland.
The accommodation was really good - directly in the old town, full eqipped and big. We also went out on the first evening of our arrival. It was unusually nice to have a few more people around us again and the city was full of cafés, bars and restaurants. We also liked it here very much. We also went to a restaurant that day to try some Lithuanian food. I had a cold beetroot soup as a starter (Šaltibarščiai) and Tomek a sauerkraut soup (Raugintų kopūstų sriuba). I also had stuffed potato dumplings (zeppelinas), which tasted delicious!
For the second day we had planned to visit the nearby Pažaislis Monastery. Since we try to save money where we can, we decided to hike the little more than 10km there. On the way we could log some geocaches and explore the city a little bit by walking. But we soon noticed that most of the way was along the busy road, which made the trail not very nice. But we soon reached the monastery, which by the way was built in 1664 and has one of the most beautiful baroque churches in the country. We had a quiet look at the monastery and the inner courtyard.
For the way back we decided to take the bus back since the road wasn't that nice. In the end we paid only 2€ for the bus ticket. But that was also because a nice bus driver up at the monastery collected us, but told us that he didn't drive the route we needed and dropped us off at our right stop a few stops further on for free. Even though he barely spoke English and we didn't speak Lithuanian, we still managed to communicate somehow and it was really super nice from him!
In the evening back in the old town we climbed a small mountain on the other side of the Memel to get a view of the city from above.
Later on we accidentally went into a Georgian restaurant, but that was also super delicious!
Then we went from Kaunas to our last destination in Lithuania- the capital Vilnius.
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