The Hill Of Crosses

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After spending a night sleeping on the worlds hardest bed, we woke the entire room with our alarm. By nine we were on our way to Siauliai (pronounced sh- ow- lay) on a rather rickety old bus. The journey was three and a half hours, so we amused ourselves by making up new rules to card games.

We'd met an American guy on the bus who was also heading for the hill of crosses, so we went in search of the tourist information together. He wanted to get a taxi that cost 40lts but we wanted the bus at 4lts, so we parted ways. I think he was a bit miffed, but it was to expensive his way.

We went to good old Rimi to buy food for dinner. We got stuffed bread, bananas, yoghurts and a drink. Yummy.

Around half three we caught the bus to the hill of crosses. When we got off the bus we had a 2km walk to the hill. It was slightly smaller than Rob expected, but I thought it was still rather impressive. We spent about an hour walking around and looking at the different crosses. The history behind it is that when Lithuania was under soviet occupation, religion was banned. Soviet soldiers removed a cross from the hill, so some locals put another cross back up. Many Lithuanians risked their lives to fight against occupation in this way. Even in the rain it was an awesome sight and the sound of the wind rattling through the crosses was pretty eerie.

Before we left Siauliai we nipped to the supermarket and bought some of this weird food we've seen everywhere. We then caught the last train back to Klaipeda. We have been warned by so many people not to use the trains for so many different reasons. We found the train lovely. It's cheaper, less bumpy, a lot less crowded and more comfortable. Other than the timetable, they are way better than English trains.

Back at Klaipeda we donned warmer clothes and headed to the same restaurant we were at yesterday. It wasn't as good this time but still as cheap.

When we got back to the hostel, there were only two people up and they went to bed soon after, so we had the computer to ourselves. We both had nice chats to our parents and we're off to bed now at two. Night night. Stob.

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Photos

Duckie and a cross
It didn't feel quite right having duckie at the hill

The wet train home
Our very first train journey