Journey: Dutchman’s Cap – Klaipeda – Cold War Museum – Hill of Crosses
Hoorah Dutchman’s Cap is a dog friendly beach! When the pups finally woke up at 9am we had a lovely walk along the wild coastline. A lovely calm start to the day and week… except just yards from the van the ever nosy Ernest stuck his head under a catering vans condiments table, and instead of coming out the way he went in, he got confused, walked forward tying his lead around the table leg, then panicked and bolted which upturned the table and sent sugar, straws and coffee lids flying all over the floor. Meanwhile Ernest is still running with the table and I attached to him, desperately trying to stop him so I could untangle and help tidy up the mess 🙈 A 1001 apologies later, the owner is smiling and fortunately found it funny. Ernest has forgotten all about it, and I’m thinking shorter leads are the way forward.
Excitement over we headed into Klaipeda, had a lovely walk around a sculpture park and the main town. We were recommended a great coffee shop – Kavos Architektai and I nipped to a vegan bakery Namai be Gluiteno across the road for some pumpkin bread which was both small, expensive and deliciously mourish…as Mark was eating his pastry in the cafe I was picking at the bread…and then realised I’d eaten 3/4 of a loaf! No regrets, epic veggie portion 😂
Our plan for the afternoon was to get the ferry to the Coronian Spit – a piece of land between Lithuania and Poland which has a national park, and key sites such as the Hill of Witches. However we found out that non decorative dogs have to be muzzled for the journey and on the island – basically all medium/large dogs. As none of ours have ever been muzzled we thought this would be too distressing/confusing for them, and so we have skipped this, but for those not traveling with dogs it is meant to be amazing. Our doggies come first.
Instead something completely different, we drove to the Cold War Museum where there are 5 nuclear missile silos. It’s a really interesting place, with dual nationality descriptions. The guided tours are only in Lithuanian, and so we wandered around on our own. We both felt uneasy standing in the missile silo knowing it once held the ability to kill hundreds of thousands of people. These places are creepy, disturbing but fascinating.
We then took the pups for a walk in Zemaitija National Park. There are still rumours of moose and wild boar living nearby, but I’m pretty sure they are hiding with the unicorns. To prove it’s not all fun, my after dinner job was to fix the toilet again. A delightful job 🤢 Everything gets rattled lose with the bumpy roads and I have to get my screwdriver out to realign the latch cogs. At least I know what I’m doing now.
It was then a race against the light to glimpse the Hill of Crosses before nightfall. There must be a million or more of various types and sizes. It just goes on and on. We just caught the fading light, but have parked nearby to view again in the morning. On our walk back to the van we heard singing coming from out of the darkness and a small parade of scouts appeared carrying crosses. A truly eerie experience.
SofaWolves 