Letter from Lithuania

This is our third night in Lithuania and a reason I feel a weird calm inside. How do I explain this state of mind?

First, it’s the landscape. Flat, green and full of lakes, in most of which you can swim. Second, it’s the weather that announces the upcoming autumn season, which probably arrives earlier in these parts. Air is much fresher now and thunderstorms look intimidating some times. Third, we are supposed to be in a 14-day self isolation since we are Greeks who arrived from Poland, a country with a great incidence of Covid-19 cases in the last half month. So, we plan to travel responsibly and discretely in Lithuania. 

But yesterday we broke the law because we had friends waiting for us in Daugau village – near Alytus: Costas and Meta Pistikos, a Greek/German couple, the first who opened their house for us back in 2007 – at the beginning of our first trip around the world.

I remember we were supposed to stay one night in their house in Rabat, Morocco, but  we stayed for three weeks waiting for a Land Rover spare part from Greece. 

Since then we became friends with Costas and Meta. We met different times in Greece and one more time in Morocco in 2014. Now they are both retired (Costas worked for 35 years in the Greek Embassy of Rabat) and every summer they travel to Lithuania. Why Lithuania?

Meta is actually half Lithuanian from her father’s side and she has a brother there – Mr. Jonas – with whom they met during the Soviet era under dramatic circumstances. The bought a country house together in Daugai and they spend quality time there every summer. A beautiful story!

We stayed a day and a night with our friends and left them tonight because tomorrow they must depart for Greece. We camp in Trakai village tonight and plan to visit the Clavè lake castle tomorrow, which is one of Lithuania’s highlights. We will travel slow in the country and already think about leaving it only after 14 days of moving quarantine._Akis Temperidis