Artur confirmed that all the arrangements had been fixed. “When you land at Vilnius, walk out of the terminal and look for a Mercedes Vito. The driver will take you to the border for six euros.” But when I walked into the car park, there was no Vito to be seen.
“Relax, he’ll be there in 10 minutes,” advised Artur on the phone. The Vito actually arrived in seven, its driver cruising slowly up and down before finding a space to park. It was dusk. I wandered over and asked if he was going to the border. A nod and a gesture towards the passenger door — so I jumped in.
It’s no more than 20 minutes from Vilnius Airport to the border crossing at Medininkai but you know you’re getting close about two kilometres away, when you reach the end of the line of parked-up wagons by the side of the road. I counted well over a hundred trucks. The driver dropped me off at a petrol station about a couple of hundred metres from a cluster of low buildings. I walked towards them, past a line of private cars, and up to the mirrored window of Lithuanian emigration control. A small section at the bottom opened for me to hand over my passport. It was returned after a rustle of paper and the tapping of a few computer keys.