During this segment we cycled from Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital, to Latvia’s second largest city: Daugavpils. Strangely, no McDonald’s here as their only one was closed in 2013 due to a lack of financial success. On our first day back on the saddle, we got to see and experience road construction in Lithuania. Our border crossing into Latvia was clearly easier than the one in Lithuanian – nonetheless it entailed riding on a dirt road for over 10km. As our travel camera started to fail us, Jenny kindly offering her iPhone15 for taking pictures – and I was even allow to use it!

2025.06.02 – [LT] Vilnius ==> Vilnius (8 kms | Total: 676 kms)

We had another lazy wake up and tasty breakfast this morning. We took the tandem to pursue some additional sightseeing in town. Along the way, we visited two bicycle shops in an attempt to buy a spare tire. We were glad we finally found a good quality tire at the 2nd shop. We were further fortunate that the tire was on sale at 50% of the regular price. On our way back to our accommodation, we stopped at a nice coffeehouse to celebrate the wrap up our stay in Vilnius. Again we visited our favorite grocery store before our dinner. We were sadden to notice that our beloved travel camera (Sony RX100) started to behave most erratically today. Maybe the rough gravel roads contributed to the problem. Forgot to mention that yesterday during our sightseeing we did a cash (euros) withdrawal at a bank ATM – not a Euronet machine. As we were very cautious this time going through the process, we realized that the ATM proposes to apply the conversion rate to CDN. The critical key to get the best rate is to decline the ATM’s conversion and let our home bank process the euro withdrawal. The difference charged in CDN funds between the two approaches were vastly different.

2025.06.03 – [LT] Vilnius ==> Molėtai (71 kms | Total: 747 kms)

We had a no cook breakfast this morning before leaving town. We truly enjoyed our apartment in Vilnius – even though the building exterior looked like it had been through a war. Our route zigzagged along the streets until we joined a 4-lane highway. We were thankful for the modest separate cycling path along the highway. After 25kms, we were expecting the highway to change to a simple 2-lane road but to our surprise there was construction work in full motion to extend the road to a 4 lane highway. Every few kms we thought the construction would end but it kept on going. We were dog-tired after having to cycle the next 40kms under varying levels of road construction. Although I mostly enjoyed cycling through the construction sites for its distraction, Jenny was deeply challenged by all the road construction dust. We managed to cycle our day’s last 11kms on a different road but the traffic was horrendous as most drivers opted to use this road in order to avoid the highway construction. Upon arriving in our destination town at 3:30pm (an hour later than our usual time), we realized our small hotel accommodation had not provided us with the lockbox code in order to retrieve our room keys. Thankfully some restaurant staff nearby helped us to reach the property management. We were quite impressed by the quality of our room – rated as a four star hotel. Later, we visited a grocery store for some snacks while debating whether we would eat breakfast in our room or splurged on the hotel’s restaurant. As we enjoyed dinner at our hotel’s neighboring restaurant, we felt the breakfast menu was priced quite reasonable. Hence, we agreed we would also eat breakfast there the next morning.

2025.06.04 – [LT] Molėtai ==> Ignalina (55 kms | Total: 802 kms)

We had a pleasant breakfast at the restaurant adjoining our small hotel. As we cycled out of town at 9:30am, we hoped that we would not encounter any road construction today. Our cycling route was very enjoyable as it passed through forested area, with small climbs and downhills, plenty of winding road and most importantly little traffic. The only annoyance on the road was a handful of deer flies that accompanied us for over 10kms as they kept flying around us. We arrived at our destination town by 1:30pm. After retrieving the keys under the entrance carpet of our apartment, we hauled our tandem to the second floor apartment for safe storage. Later, we walked to a grocery store for our dinner and next morning’s breakfast. We enjoyed a snack of frozen Xiao Long Bao that Jenny expertly cooked. Finally we shared a tasty roast chicken and some veggies for dinner. It seemed we were well compensated with a great cycling day following yesterday’s long and not so enjoyable road.

2025.06.05 – [LT] Ignalina ==> Visaginas (47 kms | Total: 849 kms)

Jenny prepared omelets for our breakfast. An unexpected light rain came down while we ate. By 9:30am, we saddled the tandem and left town while a few rain drop was still falling. Our cycling route and condition were very similar to yesterday with even less traffic. At the entrance of our destination town, upon stopping to look at our gps, a local lady speaking perfect English asked us whether we needed some help or information. The local lady was in fact a German foreigner who had been married a Lithuanian husband and was now living in town. She shared a wealth of information about the Baltic region in our 20 minutes encounter. After accessing our apartment and carrying the tandem three flight of stairs, we visited the nearby grocery store. We returned to our apartment under a light rain. We were again quite pleased with our apartment’s facilities. We had some more delicious Xiao Long Bao as a snack before our dinner. It rained on and off over the evening.

2025.06.06 – [LV] Visaginas ==> Daugavpils (47 kms | Total: 895 kms)

We had a good no cook breakfast before leaving our apartment. As we loaded tandem, a light rain started to come down. Thankfully, the rain did not last long. We continued to cycle on the quiet secondary road towards the Latvia border. We had noticed, using Google Street View, that part of the road on either side of the border was in fact a dirt/gravel road. We were quite apprehensive at whether the road surface would be adequate to allow us to cycle. In the end, the dirt road was quite manageable for cycling. Along the way, at a rest/picnic area, we met two German mature (i.e. our age) couples cycling in the same direction as us. We chatted with them for 15-20 minutes. We passed each other a few times before we arrived in our destination town. As we were quite early, we opted to do our grocery shopping before getting to our apartment. The grocery store was very busy on this Friday afternoon. As we loaded our staples on the tandem, the clouds opened up and heavy rain started falling. As we were not sure whether this rainfall would be long or short, we opted to cycle the 1km to our apartment under the rain. By the time, we reached our apartment, the rain had stopped. If only we had continued our grocery shopping for another 15 minutes, we would have stayed dry. After gaining access to our very nice apartment for the next two nights, we took a warm showers after which we did some clothes washing. We had dinner using some of our grocery staples. Over the past few weeks, Jenny has become well versed in operating different types of cooktop (induction, gas, ceramic), fans and clothes washing machines in our apartments as each seemed to have distinct ways of turning them on/off. We have also been very impressed by the typical kitchen cabinetry where fridges and freezes are integrated in the cabinet facing. Soft close pull-out drawers (Blum!). They are also the basic standard. In the evening, we spent a fair amount of time reserving our accommodations for our next segment.

2025.06.07 – [LV] Daugavpils ==> Daugavpils (0 kms | Total: 895 kms)

We had a relaxing morning. Jenny cooked a nice breakfast to get us started on our sightseeing day. We took a tram nearby our accommodation to the Daugavpils fortress site. Within the walls of the fortress, locals were hold a flea market – probably the most exciting thing about this site. We returned by tram to the city center for some additional grocery supplies. As we walked back to our accommodation, we took in a few photo opportunities. We had dinner once again in our apartment. We reviewed and selected our photos and text for our upcoming blog post. And finally, after dinner, we took a stroll along the river.

2025.06.08 – [LV] Daugavpils ==> Krāslava (48 kms | Total: 943 kms)

We left town at 10am after a filling breakfast. Traffic was heavier than expected on the main road. We appreciated cycling on a quieter side road for 10-15kms. We later returned to the main road. It started to rain while we were 10kms away from our destination town. As we arrived in town, the rain stopped. We struggled briefly to find our accommodation. Once we realized we were on the wrong street, we quickly located our apartment. To our delight, the apartment was located along a pedestrian street and on ground level. Jenny was very impressed with our nice apartment. Later, we visited the nearby grocery store before taking a well deserved warm shower. Jenny took pleasure again in preparing our dinner. In the evening, we took a short walk in our neighborhood.