Kaunas to Suwalki (approx 115 km)

22nd September

Very short walk from the Ibis to the bus station. Why do all bus stations look down at heel and only semi permanent. Most of the railway stations have looked pretty good and there are award winning airports. Is there an informal agreement among all established architects " We don't do bus stations"?

Kaunas Bus Station viewed from my room at the Ibis

It doesn't look any better at ground level

The bus route runs all the way from Riga to Cologne but there is a physical change of bus and driver here so all the people on the bus coming in have to get of and wait while the new bus comes in. It is due to leave at 1615 but, unlike the last bus, there is no attendant to check the tickets, only the driver. It doesn't fill me with confidence when I see him fixing his glasses with insulating tape. Hope they are for reading not driving. It takes a while for him to check all the tickets, put tags on the bags and the bags in the hold. Very pleased I printed the ticket; don't think he could have coped with one on a phone. Eventually we leave about 1635, cross over the river and ten minutes later we are directly opposite the old town at the confluence of the two rivers. It is a grey, wet afternoon. For most of the journey we are driving on a  two lane road with a good surface and through a flat countryside of mostly green fields, some with rolls of hay, others with cows. Lots of HGVs on the road. Presumably all these fields were part of collective farms at one time; wonder how they were divided up ? Later did a bit of surfing on the internet and found this: "Significant reforms were introduced in the early 1990s to re-establish private ownership and management in the agricultural sector. Although Lithuania succeeded in privatizing more agricultural land than Estonia or Latvia, agricultural production decreased by more than 50 percent from 1989 to 1994. One problem was that farms were broken up into smallholdings, averaging 8.8 hectares in size, often not large enough to be economically viable."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Lithuania

At 1730  we arrive at Marijampole where we stop at the bus station, which is next to the railway station, for a 5 minute smoking break. I think this is on the part of the railway line that is being upgraded as part of the Rail Baltica project. Much of the town looks industrial and there are some grim, and apparently abandoned, apartment blocks. Leaving the bus station, we follow the railway tracks through a residential area of mostly small, detached houses.

At 1820 we arrive at the almost abandoned Lithuanian border post where the bus is pulled over and there is a passport check. So much for Schengen! None of the other vehicles on the road appear to stop. The bus gets pulled over again at the Polish border post. Two women look in the hold and look on the bus but don't check passports. One man has to get off the bus as they check his luggage. This is the first Schengen border where there has been any sort of passport or customs check. Ten minutes later we are on our way again and a few minutes after that we see the sun for the first time. We also see some hills, not very big ones, but enough to force the road to curve a few times.The bus drops us at the roadside in Suwalk at about 7 pm by my watch but there is a one hour time difference so it is only 6 pm in Poland. Once I can work out where we are, it isn't a long walk to the Velvet hotel. Much smarter than I had imagined. Check in and I am impressed with the room,  much better than the Ibis, but still no kettle.

Go off in search of the railway station which I find hiding down a small, dark road. The ticket office is  closed but I can see a timetable which shows a train to Bialystock at 1243. Or, at least, that's what I think it shows.

Lonely Suwalki Station