100,000 Crosses On A Hill

SUTKUNAI.

Overnight rain has caused a change in the temperature today. The wind that brought it in is cold and the gauge never moves above 8 degrees Centigrade.

Undaunted, we drive north to the seaside resort of Palanga. Very little is open and the holidaymakers are heavily dressed in woollens and waterproofs. There is a nice pier at the end of a pedestrian walkway. However, we decide that the wind is either too bracing or too wild, depending on your point of view, to attempt walking to the end.

The choice of shorts was obviously a mistake, I was chilled to the bone by the time we returned to the van.

It is a day for driving so we head west towards Latvia. Our stop is just outside Siauliai. A little further north there is a monument called the Hill of Crosses. It was a significant anti-establishment protest whereby locals planted crosses carrying messages of hope. The practice has continued post-communist and there are now reputed to be over 100,000 crosses of all shapes and sizes. Pope John Paul visited in the nineties and commissioned a monastery close by. We visit it and meet the friar, a lovely man, German by birth but Lithuanian by choice. I had brought some mud in on my shoes. He proceeded to Hoover it up. I apologised but he dismissed it, explaining it gave him a job to do! A truly humble man.

On to our site. It is in the middle of a housing estate but there are no shop, bars or restaurants. Dinner and a bottle of wine in the van. We check the weather forecast for Riga for the next couple of days. We may be in for temperatures below zero! We'll need to empty the water if that is the case.