We are now back at Russian territory. This time in the satellite area Kaliningrad, that is squeezed in between Poland and Lithuania. Since we already have a Russian multiple entry visa, we thought it was perfect opportunity to visit Kaliningrad.

The border passage was very strange. One kilometer from the border we had to park our car In the parking lot there were already 50 cars and some trucks. The parking attendants asked to see our registration papers, to park and to wait until they said okay for us to approach the border. It took three hours! At the border they where more difficult than usual, they questioned everything and the paperwork took ages. This part took us another three hours. In all it took six hours to cross the border to Kaliningrad. That’s a new record!

Before the WWII Kaliningrad was called Köningsburg and belonged to Germany. During the war in 1944, the English bomb fighters nearly wiped out the city. In April 1945 the Red Army finished off the rest of Köningsburg and occupied the city. In 1946 they renamed the city to Kaliningrad, and deported all Germans to Germany.

One of the few things to see in Kaliningrad the German supreme command bunker , that has been renovated and are now housing a museum over the battle of Kaliningrad.

We took the route along the coast up to Svetlogorsk, nice old town by the Baltic Sea. The town made it through the war without too much damage, and most of the old German houses are still there.

After that we headed for Kurshaya Kosa, a very long sand split in between Kaliningrad and Lithuania. Kurshaya Kosa is also a national park, and we had to 17 Euro per person just to drive through! Well, the scenery was nice at least with a 100 kilometer long sand beach, and surprisingly big sand dunes , that we didn’t expect to find in these parts of the world.

In the middle of the split there is a border crossing between Kaliningrad and Lithuania. This time the crossing of the border took only 10 minutes!

We are moving quickly between the countries now. The countries here in Europe are so small, yesterday we where in Kaliningrad, this morning we woke up in Lithuania and tonight we go to bed in Riga in Latvia.

We are so very spoilt with exciting adventures. It makes it hard to work up some excitement over North European countries; they are too similar to Sweden. This is the backside of traveling extensively in interesting and very different countries like we have done for the past two years.