Today started slowly, the morning was spent catching up on editing and organising stuff, so we didn’t leave our campsite until lunchtime. Sometimes the quiet, routine days feel just as important as the adventurous ones.

We took a detour to a palace in a town that had an unsettling vibe. The palace belonged to a count from the 1800s, and it was a little creepy. While it was interesting to see, I’m not sure it was worth the detour. Still, there’s something about places like that that make you wonder about the stories hidden beneath the surface.

Crossing into Lithuania brought an immediate change in the landscape. The farmland faded away, replaced by thick pine forests and calm lakes. Had we just transported back to Finland?

We spent hours looking for somewhere to camp that wasn’t in a mozzie infested forest, and finally at 8pm, we found a spot overlooking a lake. We don’t usually like camping near towns on a Saturday night due to local hoons, but a few other campervans are here, so it feels safe enough. There’s something comforting about ending the day beside water, even on the most average of days.

It got noisy for a while. A few loud motorbikes rolled up, then the pumping music from a bar up the road. But it all quietened down about 11pm and it was a peaceful nights rest.