2017/07/31

Day 02: Bialystok - Lithuania - Latvia (Luzda)

I am one of the first at breakfast and I'm happy about the Latte Macchiato from the coffee machine.

When getting out my bike from the secured parking in a fenced area, I meet an Italian guy - Alberto - also preparing his bike for the day. We decide to go a together, because we work out that we have the same direction for a while. Communication is is not easy, because Alberto doesn't speak much English or anything else than Italian. These Italians are really brave: when he will be retired in two years, Alberto plans a trip around the world, without much language knowledge.

I ride ahead, because I have a satnav and Alberto does navigation only with navigation apps on his mobile phone. We ride along a threatening thunderstorm front for a long time. And so we continue our ride without breaks in the hope of escaping the storm. But in Latvia it caught us. We have to stop at the road side and have a break for about half an hour until weather gets better again. It was a real heavy storm, because a lot of branches and even whole trees were falling down and some parts of the road are covered with them.

About 100 km distance from my planned accommodation, we  say good-bye to each other. Had a nice ride together!

Two of the three accomodations, which Brigitte preselected for me on a Booking.com list are already occupied, the third Motel Golden Fox is not far and also cheap - it's a good choice, I will learn later.

Insertion: In Poland, Latvia and Lithuania quite a lot of people are able to speak English. Many Latvians and Lithuanians seem to work in Great Britain. You can see many cars with British plates.

The motel is a private house with an apartment where the rooms are for rent. It's run by a very nice couple about my age. He is Latvian, she is Russian, and they are really very caring and help me to fill the customs form for Russia right after my arrival - I'm quite happy, because the form is only in Russian. They take more than an hour to fill it with me. They tell me the whole procedure and although I still had made a few mistakes and still need two hours to get across the Russian border, it would have taken much, much longer without the preparation by my hosts.