2017-08-12 Kaunas, Lithuania to Via Toll, Poland to Masuren Camping, Dywity
Previous Day :: Overview Page :: Next Day
Kaunas, Lithuania to Via Toll, Poland to Masuren Camping, Dywity
We wake early and decide to get up have coffee and are showered and ready for breakfast by 8.00 am here at Kaunas in Lithuania. Another hot day is promised and already the temperature is well into the twenties by breakfast time. We leave Kaunas at 8.40 am and are back on the E67 we head south through Marijampole towards the Polish border.
Lithuania is a very flat and agricultural country, not dissimilar to the Canadian prairies. The landscape is flat so there are field after field of crops. The roads are straight so it is possible to see for miles. There are fields of cereal (wheat, barley and canola) and vegetables (potatoes, carrots, broad beans, beetroot and turnip). We decide to drive through and enjoy the ambiance of a quiet and rural country, we of course do not visit the towns.
We reach the Polish border about midday, we queue to obtain a road toll ‘box’ so that we can travel on any road (with or without tax). Because our Hymer motorhome has a plated weight greater than 3,500kg we are treated in the same way as a 40 ton articulated truck. It is an arduous and unnecessary process, rather like customs control to enter a country but longer, more convoluted, more frustrating as no one speaks English and so we have no idea what is going on. We take our passports, the Hymer registration documentation and emissions information to the Via-Toll office. We wait an hour in the queue, it takes about 45 minutes to complete the documentation and pay 120Zl deposit on the box plus 150Zl advance payment for tolls, 260 Zloty (Polish currency) in total, (the equivalent of €64). They give us a small radar box to sit on the dashboard of the vehicle which will record our miles on toll roads and how much tax is due. A ridiculous waste of time for us and the staff as we paid so little. Poland should follow other countries and exempt motorhomes from this bureaucratic nightmare, however, that’s probably asking too much of a former soviet state.
The route we will go we do not expect to use toll roads but of course we might. We pay our money and take the radar box and fix it on the dashboard. We feel exhausted by the whole experience! We drive on into Poland on the E67 and stop for lunch at a small layby on near Bakalarzewo. All towns in Poland are unpronounceable! The quality of the roads changes immediately, and become impossibly worse as we travel along minor roads, the 653 and 655 towards Gizycko. The countryside is rural with smallholdings along the way and fields of crops and cereal. Everything is very run down, and the roads are in very poor condition, full of potholes and deep ruts where years of tyres have word away the surface, we rarely get above 50 kph (30mph) and often the roads are so bad that we travel at about 40 kph. The ruts are universal, Poland has a special road sign to tell you there are ruts in the road, but you don’t need a sign! (see photos).
It is a slow drive! At Bystry we turn onto E59 and drive around the end of Lake Niegocin, 50km to Mragowo, the road here is better. The blue sky of the morning clouds over and we seem to be driving towards darker and darker clouds, possibly a storm. The temperature is 37°C and it is roasting! At Mragowo, we stop for shopping at a small supermarket called Biedronka (ladybird)… what an experience! The supermarket is packed, full of people frantically shopping as if it is Christmas eve! Trollies stacked to overflowing and at least 10 people waiting at every check out. Not helped by the roasting heat (pre storm). We join the queue, wait and finally get to the check-out and pay… we are glad to get out. As we put our shopping in the Hymer large drops of rain begin to fall. We climb in and the heavens open. We sit in the dry and watched the other shoppers sheltering in the doorway wondering if they should (or could) make a dash for it with their overloaded trollies… some do and get soaked, others waiting at the front are gradually pushed out of the door into the rain as more and more people push from behind.
We continue our journey for another 65km on H16 with more food supplies and the all-important milk to Olsztyn where we turn north on R.51 to a small place called Dywity. It is a ‘new town’, laid out with a maze of new houses, some still not finished, and all palatial in size, each with a very large garden. We reflect on the throwback from living in crowded, Soviet-style concrete blocks, often just numbered and without a name and no garden. We have passed many of them and they are incredibly ugly. In places, there are huge areas of allotments, each is a garden covered in flowers and personalised to the owner. Even when everything had been removed the human spirit has to express itself individually.
These new houses would dwarf even north American style houses, even the gardens of at least an acre and each individually landscaped. We drive through the new town in awe of these properties and then out of it towards the river Nemen. We find a narrow turning onto a dirt road through the forest with a sign to a campsite. After about a kilometre we reach our destination in the trees. It is gated and looks well cared for. The gates open for us as if by magic and we drive up to Reception where a man awaits our arrival. He speaks good German and a little English so our conversation is quite good. He has about a dozen mature pitches divided by tall privet hedges, rather like Penne d’Argenais in France, each with a tap and hook up, there is one left that overlooks the river and we take it, set up and get the chairs out.
Everyone on the campsite is German! Our neighbours are very friendly and, we note, all have dogs. As we sit and drink our wine we observe the doggy behaviour and pecking order. The dog on the pitch opposite ours is the smallest and the noisiest! Several much larger dogs walk past and it barks threateningly at each of them. One feisty beast, a large Labrador, stops and with a deep throated growl, crouches low and barks back. This in turn triggers a doggy rant of huge proportion from the little one, the lab is straining on his lead so much that the owner (a strong man) is taking all his strength to hold it back. The owners get their dogs under control and a good-natured banter follows in German with much laughter. We observe the little dog standing menacingly ‘on guard’ making sure that all the others know who is the Alpha-male. It is better than television and gives us much amusement until we go and eat our tea.
Dywity campsite is sat on the circle of land enclosed inside the ox-bow in the curve of the river. We walk along the high river bank around the perimeter of the land, the owner must own all this land. There are a few wood cabins and pods at the far side and a large grassy field with more hook-ups and space for many campers, caravans and tents. The large toilet and shower block is clean a good number of toilets, wash basins and about four showers. We settle back at the camper, write our journals and go to bed early.
As we entered Poland, the clocks go back an hour and the sunsets at 8.45 pm on this eastern boundary of the time zone.
Kaunas, Lithuania to Masuren Camping, Dywity photos
Click any photo to enlarge
Motorhome return tour from Turku in Finland to the UK via the Baltic States
keywords for this page. motorhome trip through the Baltic states, Motorhome camping in Lithuania, Kaunas, Lithuania, Knaunas Lithuania, Motorhome camping Lithuania, Poland motorhomes over 3500kg, Poland heavy goods vehicles problem