Padaliai–Čiobiškis Ferry

Do you know the most interesting way to cross a river? Don't answer until you have tried the only cable ferry in the Baltic states, powered solely by the river's current. From May to November, anyone visiting Kernavė, and especially those travelling towards Kaišiadorys via Čiobiškis, has a great chance to add a memorable experience to their trip. It is particularly recommended for cyclists. The ferry, which can carry as many as two cars at a time across the Neris at its confluence with the Musė, is a great convenience for local people, shortening the journey from Kernavė to Kaišiadorys. For those trying it for the first time, it is an extra dose of excitement. History enthusiasts and experts in technical heritage say this place is undeservedly little known among travellers, so once you have tried it you will feel you have discovered a spot 'untrodden' by mass tourism. A ferry without an engine especially amazes children, while for adults a slow trip across the river, watching the current and feeling the wind, washes their worries away. There are no big crowds of travellers here, so it is quite likely that you will be the only passenger, for whom third-generation ferryman Gediminas Dzeventauskas waits patiently sitting on the bank. Chat with the 'captain', as the locals respectfully call him, about the wind, the strength of the current, the water level and the speed of the ferry. And perhaps you will be lucky enough to hear how G. Dzeventauskas's grandfather once started this 'business', risking borrowed money, and how it later became the property of the collective farm (like any other larger asset of country people at the time). After Lithuania regained independence in 1990, the ferry returned to the Dzeventauskas family by chance, when the current ferryman's father bought it. And the captain himself and his family gave up a comfortable life in the city for the sake of this legacy. The oldest crossing of the Neris at this spot known to historians is that of General Adam Dezydery Chłapowski, one of the leaders of the 1831 uprising against Tsarist Russian occupation, and his army. Incidentally, the legendary heroine Emilia Plater fought in his regiment. After their defeat in 1863, the retreating insurgents burned the ferry. In 1912 a bridge was built here on the initiative of the Tsarist authorities, which Russian soldiers blew up during the First World War. In 1916 the Germans built a new bridge, and when it wore out, the banks of the Neris were once again connected by a ferry.