Zur deutschen Fassung.

Last year, my birthday coincided with the search for an apartment – ultimately successful -, so that I couldn’t embark on any of my classical birthday trips in 2023. Instead, I only went hiking for the whole day, which I still turned into three articles (part 1, part 2, part 3).

Since then, I have returned to practice as an attorney which sadly comes with a strict statutory 2-week limit on vacations (§ 53 I Nr. 2 BRAO). But those two weeks I am going to use fully and to the last minute to rejuvenate the cherished tradition of birthday trips.

Next week, I will resume the journey to the center of Europe.

Wow, there are still a lot of points missing. That will easily take a few more years, but you are not in any rush, are you? At the end of June, I will be heading to Poland, where the geographical center of Europe is located in Suchowola, in the far north-east of the country, according to the oldest calculations of 1775.

Suchowola is a small town of only 2200 inhabitants, but that’s the beauty of this series: the fact that I am randomly assigned to points that I would otherwise never have visited, thanks to the strange and obscure work of mathematicians, astronomers and geodesists. And then I have to see what I make of them.

Besides, I can’t imagine Poland being boring anywhere. At least not for a traveler interested in history. If necessary, I will expand the radius by a few kilometers, which will put Augustów on our map. That town is by the Augustów Canal, which, because this blog brings together fans of canals from all over the world, would make a worthwhile hike.

And then I will continue to Lithuania.

This is the country where I was first introduced to the idea of a geographical center of Europe, not least every time I committed the gaffe of assigning Lithuania to Eastern Europe. Oh, oh, the mood immediately dropped by 10 degrees and friendships were abruptly canceled.

One of the centers is in Europe Park, a truly wonderful open-air museum.

But Lithuania has – apparently the calculations differ a little bit – a second place that claims to be the geographical center of Europe: Purnuškės.

I don’t know how I could have missed this second point when I was living in Lithuania.

In any case, I’m looking forward to returning to this lovely country. The one year I spent in Vilnius felt like living in paradise. If Lithuanian wasn’t intentionally the most complicated language in the world, I might even have stayed.

Lithuania also fits in perfectly with my birthday trip, as Lithuanians celebrate their national holiday on July 6th. Wandering through the forests on this day, you will come across people in traditional costumes and with flowers in their hair, dancing through the countryside. And in the evening, the whole country gathers to sing. The Baltic peoples once even defeated the Soviet Union with singing.

The only center of Europe missing in the Baltic States will be on the island of Saaremaa. But at my leisurely pace, all of this would be too much for a two-week trip. (My travel guideline: If you have two weeks, only plan for one week. The rest will fill up spontaneously). Besides, these Estonian islands are so enchanting that I don’t mind spending two weeks just on Saareema.

Thus, if I manage to find postcards, those of you who have supported this travel blog so generously over the last few months and years will soon be receiving mail from Poland or Lithuania.

Let’s see if it is still as complicated as it was in 2012 when I lived in Lithuania. Back then, you went to the post office, where the letter was weighed and the postage calculated at the first counter. With this information, you went to the second counter. There you paid the right amount and got a receipt. With the receipt, you went to the third counter, where you got the stamp. Then you had to go back to the first counter, where the strict postal inspector checked that you stuck the stamp on the correct letter. When I wanted to hand over the letter, I was told: “This is an international letter, you can’t post it here. You have to go to the international department of the central post office.” There I had to fill out a form for each letter and have it checked and stamped by the international mail commissioner. When I finally wanted to post the letter, I was admonished: “You’ll have to post it yourself. There are boxes outside.” It still felt like in the Soviet Union.

As I said, I really loved living there.

Oh, and if anyone of you lives in that part of Europe: Please let me know. It would be great to meet up.

Links:

• Explaining the project “journey to the center of Europe”.
• Previous reports from Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.