Aukstaitija Lakes Route

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Vilnius

   Vilnius is a city that takes a few hours to like and a few days to love. The old town, one of the largest surviving medieval centres in Eastern Europe, is a tangle of cobbled lanes and courtyards on the banks of the Neris and Vilnia rivers, and it is crowded with churches, more than forty of them by most counts, in Gothic, Renaissance and especially Baroque styles. From the top of Gediminas Hill you see red roofs, green domes and the dark line of forest beyond.

   Read the complete Vilnius write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Aukstaitija Lakes Route point 1 sits at 0 km, early in the day. Next is Aukstaitija Lakes Route point 2.

2. 2. Molėtai

   Lithuanians will tell you that Molėtai is where the lakes begin, and the numbers back them up: the district around the town holds well over two hundred lakes, more than any other part of the country, scattered among low wooded hills left by the last glaciation. The town of about seven thousand sits on the shore of one of them, in the region called Aukštaitija, the Highlands, which are not high at all by Alpine standards but give the landscape a rolling shape that flat Lithuania elsewhere lacks. Utena, a bigger town and the nearest with a proper range of services, lies thirty kilometres to the east.

   Read the complete Molėtai write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Aukstaitija Lakes Route point 2 comes up 38 km in. Next is Aukstaitija Lakes Route point 3.

3. 3. Ignalina

   Ignalina is a small town on a lake in the north-east corner of Lithuania, close to the borders with Latvia and Belarus, and it is the starting point for Aukštaitija National Park, the oldest of Lithuania's national parks. The landscape is glacial: the ice sheets that retreated ten thousand years ago left behind a rumpled country of hills, hollows, kettle lakes and long ridges, with more than a hundred lakes in the park alone, linked by streams and surrounded by pine forest. The air smells of resin, and in summer, of hay and wild berries.

   Read the complete Ignalina write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   At least 109 km in you reach Aukstaitija Lakes Route point 3. Next is Aukstaitija Lakes Route point 4.

4. 4. Near Ignalina

   Ignalina is a small town on a lake in the north-east corner of Lithuania, close to the borders with Latvia and Belarus, and it is the starting point for Aukštaitija National Park, the oldest of Lithuania's national parks. The landscape is glacial: the ice sheets that retreated ten thousand years ago left behind a rumpled country of hills, hollows, kettle lakes and long ridges, with more than a hundred lakes in the park alone, linked by streams and surrounded by pine forest. The air smells of resin, and in summer, of hay and wild berries.

   Read the complete Ignalina write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Aukstaitija Lakes Route point 4, late in the day. Next is Aukstaitija Lakes Route point 5.

5. 5. Utena

   Utena is the main town of Aukštaitija, the Highlands of northeastern Lithuania, a region whose name simply means upper land. It is not mountainous, but the landscape rolls in low hills, glacial ridges and long blue lakes left behind by the last ice age, with pine forest, birch and farmland in between. The town has about thirty-three thousand people and sits beside a lake, Alaušas, with a pleasant park and a promenade. It is the place to buy fuel, groceries and a hot meal, with Anykščiai and Molėtai the next towns, each about thirty kilometres away.

   Read the complete Utena write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Aukstaitija Lakes Route point 5 sits at 170 km, late in the day.