That was a fun journey. Until about Ełk the landscape is unexpectedly varied – very hilly with forests and many little and one big lake and things. After that it calms down substantially and becomes more flat and open.

I definitely can recommend going to Białystok this way.

I believe the centre of Białystok is fifteen minutes that way, but the map is inconclusive whether there really is one.

Let’s try something else instead. There is a local service heading northeast departing pretty much right now.

Is this a broad gauge track? This should be a broad gauge track. Does someone have a tape measure?

(There is a broad gauge line parallel to the standard gauge line to about 25 kilometres from the border with various transshipment facilities along the way. Revitalised in 2014, is there even any traffic now?)

I think the Polregio guard just now claimed that Interrail is only valid on the Intercity but then let me stay without further discussion because language barrier.

Although after ninety minutes on this thing I might wish to have waited for the Intercity.

Is this the stuff? It was the only bottle I could find in the somewhat disappointing (and certainly missplaced) Carrefour.

(Edit to add: If so, I get the hype.)

Start of the line on a new day.

You know you are way east in a time zone when the sun is well up already at half six.

Mockava station. It clearly was never built as a border station and the village of Mockava is five kilometres away. But this is how far south the broad gauge network reaches, so we – all three of us – have to change.

In theory, standard gauge continues all the way to Kaunas but the Polish trains aren’t certified and I think signalling is missing or something.

Passenger service between Suwałki and Mockava and onward to Vilnius and Warsaw – Krakow was only re-established in December 2022. It proved successful beyond expectations, so since last December there are now three daily connections.

Reportedly, the trains can indeed get quite busy, so I figured taking the morning connection that requires an overnight stay in Suwałki would be the calmer option. And indeed, so far the train is neatly quiet. Let’s see whether that changes in Kaunas.

Having found out that if you run trains people actually will use them, Lithuanian Railways started a Vilnius to Riga service in December 2023 – there previously had been a gap at the Lithuania/Latvia border.

That service became very popular, too, so last year they extended the service to the Estonian border and coordinated an onwards connection with the Estonians.

And, lo and behold, early this year they had to add another through service between Riga and Tallinn plus one more transfer connection Fridays to Sundays to cope with demand.

I didn’t quite pay attention when booking, so I was to take this knackered old elephant from Vilnius to Kaišiadorys where I am now to wait for the train from …Vilnius. I think they sold this to me because first class was already sold out on that second train. Also, we passed through here on the way up already but didn’t stop.

Anyway, I didn’t do this on purpose. Honest.

I have fifty minutes and could have walked into town – they have a pretty church, apparently – but I had a hunch I might see this: train 080Ч, Kaliningrad – St. Petersburg on its transit through Lithuania.

Sadly the sun is all wrong and there are noise barriers on the other side of the tracks, so these shady snapshots will have to do.

Oh good: The four hour trip to Klaipėda isn’t on a Pesa regional train set.

They weren’t joking when they claimed it was sold out, though. Pretty much every seat is taken. For me they only had a backwards facing aisle seat left. Ah well. At least they replaced the Soviet seats with something quite comfy here in second class. (There also is third.)

Klaipėda, where the weather is definitely more late winter.

Now I have to just ge… hang on.

“Due to late arrival, your ferry departs on 16/03 at 03:00hrs.”

That was supposed to be midnight. This is going to be a long evening.

Pub?

Sea days are great.

Slept until breakfast, which started at ten due to the late departure (I think we left 5:30). Then slept some more. At two I thought I should probably get up and walk around a bit. Decided against it and slept until half past three. Now some coffee. Probably will have a nap after.

This ship, M/V Nils Dacke (the third ship of this name), definitely isn’t a fancy cruise ferry. The communal area is very small. Buffet restaurant and tiny duty free shop are grouped around the reception desk with a bunch of seats around. That’s it. Cabins are quite spacious, though. Thirty years old and you can see it.

An honest work horse. Love it.

Good morning! Definitely Scandinavia.

My original idea was to loop through Sweden for a day but I will aim for Denmark in a more or less straight line instead. It won’t be the normal route, though, because of course not.

@partim The K is soft (voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative, ɕ) before the soft vowels E, I, Y, Ä, Ö. Before the hard vowels A, O, U, Å the K is hard (a regular K) unless it is followed by a J. There are a few loanwords where a hard K is followed by a soft vowel which is an ortographic anomaly. The classic example is the word kex (from English "cakes") which often, but not always, is pronounced with a hard K.

K followed by consonant (other than J) is always hard.