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Hotel: Radisson SAS Riga
+Trakai
+Siauliai
We got off to a slow start out of Vilnius this morning. We almost missed breakfast after sleeping in until nearly 10:00. The restaurant had tiled images on the walls of stylized Soviet workers. There was a basket of beautifully decorated Easter eggs sitting at the bar. The breakfast at the Scandic was Ok and had the basics of fruit, sausages, and Lithuanian pancakes (blynai or blintzes). We had planned to rent a car today and drive up to Riga via the Lithuanian towns of Trakai and Siauliai. I had made a reservation with Alamo but when we arrived back at the airport, not only was there no Alamo booth, but all the other car rental places were closed as well! Today (Easter Monday) was a holiday in Lithuania and pretty much everything was shut down today. We called the hotel and finally the agent was able to find a company that was open and willing to come out to the airport to rent us a car! Meanwhile, some of the other rental places (Avis, Hertz) started opening around 11:45. We finally set off about 12:30, much later than I had hoped. It was raining this morning as we said goodbye to Vilnius. I wasn't sure if we had time for Trakai after a late start, but we decided to give it a go anyway. The rain started clearing as we approached Trakai although it remained overcast. The castle is built on an island at the end of town, which is located along a peninsula jutting into the lake. Most of the unique wood houses in town were painted different colors. The lake was still mostly frozen in mid-April but and there were quite a few people visiting the castle today. The castle had been in ruins for years before being rebuilt during the Soviet era, the leaders in Moscow were not amused when this was done. We still had a long drive ahead of us as we grabbed some sandwiches to to go at the nearby cafe. We planned to visit the Hill of Crosses in Siauliai along the way. The best way from Trakai was along the road via Kaunas to the coast; the road was in excellent condition and dead straight dual carriageway most of the way. Since it was a holiday there was almost no traffic. It was a few hours drive to the turnoff, where we headed north. This road to Riga was narrower but dead straight as well, we headed through pine forests and some hills, passing isolated farms. I got stuck behind a bus, and just as I go to pass it we passed the turnoff to the Hill of Crosses. Figures. We turned around and headed down the 2km side road to the Hill of Crosses. There were quite a few people here today for the holiday. The Hill of Crosses is quite a unique place, it had been a sacred place for some time and had been a Christian pilgrimige site for years. During the Soviet period, the officials bulldozed the site twice, yet each time people would come back and place crosses. Now there are millions if not billions of crosses, of all shapes and sizes, from tiny 1" ones to ones rising 20'. The crosses have overflowed the hill and now line the path along to the parking lot. The sun had gone behind the clouds and it was getting quite chilly!! It was maybe 4PM by this time and Riga was still another few hrs drive, including the border crossing into Latvia. The road ran dead straight northeast all the way from Siauliai and we soon reached the border with Latvia. I had been expecting the border crossing to take some time, but they waved us through on the Lithuanian side. On the Latvian side all I had to do was show the car papers and hand over our passports, it took all of 2 minutes and we didn't even need to get out of the car! The sun had come out as we drove along. Finally we arrived into Riga around 7PM, getting lost on the way to the hotel. The Radisson hotel has a great spot along the edge of the river overlooking the old town on the other side. Not many tourists this time of year at the hotel, they were in the process of renovating some rooms and we managed to score an upgrade!

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