A wonderful place to visit, even if it is really really cold

The lake at the home stay
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We weren't in the main town in Aukstatija but in a little village called Guicai which isn't marked on the map. It's about 20 minutes drive into the park from the train station and is next to one of the lakes. There are about 70 permanent residents plus a group of people who come up just for the summer. It was a long trip up on the local train (hard bench seats) and lots of people. I'm astounded that anyone at all under 25 can hear in Europe because they take loud music to a whole new level. I could not only recognise the songs from their iPods, but could also hear the words!

The beautiful garden at the home stay
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We came straight out to the village from the station and headed into the homestay house. I ended up in the house next door by myself because they weren't used to having so many people in single rooms. The houses are where the families usually live in the winter and they move out into summer houses in the garden and rent the rooms out for a couple of months. We dumped our bags and got changed before heading out onto the lake in canoes. It was initially very easy because we were in the creek through the village and going in the same direction as the current so all we had to do was steer. Once we got into the lake we had to do some real paddling and the head wind didn't help at all. We paddled across a couple of lakes until we reached a hill (well mound really). We got out and climbed up it to look at the view from the top. Lithuania is really flat so you don't have to go very high to get a good view. I think the guide said that the highest point in the whole country is only 289m. There was an oak tree on the top of the hill which has been used for a long time in pagan rituals and still gets used by the locals for ceremonies each May. They say that it is a spot where you can ask the Earth Goddess for things. We then paddled for a little longer before getting in the buses back to the homestay.

The home stay house
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We had a delicious dinner of traditional Lithuanian food, soup, vegies, meat. It was really nice. It was good to get some home cooked food too, I'm getting a bit sick of eating in restaurants all the time.

The next morning we had a delicious breakfast of pancakes and jams before setting off on the 5km walk to the Bee Keeping museum. It's a really nice walk through the village and then along the edge of the lake and then through the forest to get there. It threatened to rain on us but never really came to anything. The beekeeping museum is quite interesting. It's not very large but has enough stuff to amuse you for an hour or so. The Lithuanians have been collecting honey for over 500 years. Initially they would just find a natural hive in a tree and protect it from bears and collect the honey at the end of the season. This didn't work so well though because they had to kill the bees. Once they worked out about the smoke keeping the bees calm, they could start to build hives for them and move them around at will. The museum has a great collection of historical hives which have been carved out of wood. They were really very decorative. Many of the ones in the garden still have bees living in them.

In the afternoon it rained so we had a quiet time sitting inside and sleeping. It was really cold after the rain stopped so we had to light the fire in the garden and sit around it. It's still summer supposedly but it was 8 degrees when I got up in the morning and the highest number I saw on the thermometer was 14! Not very summery. I've had to get the polar fleece and the thermals out. That night we had another wonderful meal before an early night so that we could get up early to spend the day on the train heading to Poland.