Vilnius, Lithuania, home of vintage shopping, family dinners, country of Upizis & the hill of crosses

---

Lithuania, Vilnius

Another long bus trip and I arrived in Lithuania's capital, Vilnius. Unfortunately it was raining and I was struggling to read my map and follow the directions to the hostel (which was aparently only 10-15mins away. I finally worked out where I was, information paramount to figure out where I needed to go and navigated a slightly dodgy area of town,into tiny cobbled stone streets which told me I was getting close to the old town. Unfortunately when I got to my accomodation gate (which was perfect for the hobbits in Lord of the rings) there was also 4 workmen having tea/"working" in the doorway so I pushed passed them managed to open the tiny hobbit door and duck under to get inside. Unfortunately my bag adds another 10cm to my height so when I stood up, the top of the door grabbed my bag and I nearly ended up on my butt. Considerable stifled laughter from the workmen ensued until I managed to squat in the doorway and walk through like a crab. The joys of backpacking...

The hostel owner was a lovely Canadian guy who showed me my room and then offered me fresh hot waffles. Win! I had scoped out the vintage boutiques on my walk through town so I knew where I wanted to get to as soon as I had unpacked but I also knew Sebastien (who I had met in Estonia) was also staying in Vilnius and perhaps even my hostel so I checked my emails til he arrived back in the hostel and then we headed out as he had been here several times before and had agreed to be my guide. We had a quick lunch and a chat before Seb took me around town at twilight to show me the sights and quirky stores in the many alleys and laneways of Vilnius. The fact that there was vintage boutiques on every corner had already endeared me to Vilnius, but I was quickly thrilled to be staying almost 6 days here to discover every inch. We came back after an hour or two of walking to have a few drinks and a home cooked dinner in the hostel before heading out to see the nightlife. Lots of bars, a few more drinks, getting lost, getting cold we finally found a good bar called the Piano bar and spent the rest of the evening chatting away until closing time when I discovered they had a working piano and began to rip it up for the locals. Lots of applause and happy faces so I called it a success and Sebs and I went back to the hostel to get some sleep as he was flying out early next morning.

I slept til the afternoon and then got up to go check out every vintage boutique I had mapped out from the previous wanderings. No purchases but lots of scoping and planning. I managed to get very lost again as the lanes are tiny and there are too many dead ends. I came back to the hostel in the evening and met my new roomies Stephanie from Quebec (living in London) and Zeb and Jamie also holidaying from London. Steph and I hit it off so I took her for Seb's orientation walk through town (got lost again, by now I usually don't get lost so it was a strange experience) and then we went to a local vegetarian/yoga restaurant for traditional food for dinner. I am usually anti vegetarian but I have to say it was some of the best and cheapest vegetarian food I have ever eaten. Amazingly delicious and very filling, meal, drink and dessert was all just on 5€! A quiet night in playing jenga with Zeb and Jamie, a few drinks and a successful evening.

Next day Steph and I met another girl in our hostel and we decided to hit the vintage boutiques and see what bargains we could find. It was ridiculously cheap and I went a bit crazy. Purchases included a new wool coat for €10, a scarf, pendant, vest x2, bracelets....Steph did little bit of shopping too, haha! We were going to do the walking tour but decided we were having too much fun and could do that another day. We also wandered through town to see the touristy sights and decided to make our way up the one big hill to see the view of Vilnius from the iconic 3 white crosses. Unfortunately we forgot that the sun set at approx 3:30pm and we ended up there in mostly twilight but soon heading towards darkness. We had wandered up by a slippery and muddy walking track but found a vehicle road to travel back on which led to a big oval on another side of the hill, we were going to investigate further when gunshots rang out. Turned out we had found the local rifel range! Very quickly we made the decision to turn back to our slightly unfavourable slippery path. Thanks go to my Dad for insisting I always put my flashlight in my handbag. Today it was so very useful. Back in the hostel we made our home made pizza's again and had a few quiet drinks before heading out with some guys from the hostel, two guys from somewhere in South America (neither of which spoke English well), a guy from Mexico who was working in England and Zeb and Jamie. We went to a few clubs, ended up with the hippies in a bar that played reggee and tried to count how many people had dreadlocks...I think we stopped counting at 25.

Next day we all got up at a semi reasonable hour and headed to the local fruit and vege markets with the hostel owner. The food was so fresh, so cheap and so delicious, I bought orange juice and twice went back for the fruit/oat biscuits. We had lunch in the hostel before heading off on the walking tour equipped with umbrella's as it had begun to rain. Our guide was interesting and our fav part was seeing Uzupis which is a country inside Vilnius created by artists. Aparently they got together, decided the dodgy part of town needed some love and attention, peitioned the government to make it their own country, and won! They have their own president, flag and consistution (featured in several languages along one street wall), their own army of 11 people and their own unique view of the world! Haha It is now a much more expensive part of town to live in favoured by the higher income earners. There is a bridge to cross to get into the country and there is a mermaid statue who sits guard underneath the bridge. Aparently in the floods a while back she ended up down stream somewhere and she had to be returned! There is also an old guy who used to live in Vilnius but went a bit nuts and is an alcoholic. He said to the Uzupis government that they should have a Duke of Uzupis and it should be him. Strangely enough they agreed and he goes about town ranting and raving and having a laugh. Even funnier was the fact he insisted they erect a statue in his honour, so they did, it stands about 2 feet tall and sits on the edge of a roof by a house near the river.

Another impressive Vilnius/Uzupis area is Tibetian square. It is a tiny (non-square shaped) park in Uzupis so called because the Artists hung the Tibetian flags in the trees. At the same time a very rich Chinese business man was building a sports arena in another part of Vilnius and took objection to it being called Tibetian square. So Lithuania had to decide....tiny park could have a name change or they would loose their sports stadium. Funnily enough, Tibetian square still remains and they are now without a sports stadium instead. Gutsy little country! I love it!

My favourite tragic church story:
So I am nearly over churches and most churches I see now after travelling for so long follow the "ABC" principal or "Another Bl**dy Church". However, this story was touching so I shall share. A church builder was old and so took on an apprentice. This apprentice was very clever and worked hard but took a fancy to his boss's daughter, Anne and they fell in love. The apprentice asked for the Church builder's daughters hand in marriage but the Church builder said "No, you are not good enough for my daughter, she deserves better than a church builder". The apprentice was not detered and asked again every year until finally the church builder said "fine we will build two churches side by side and if yours is better, you can marry my daughter". They built the churches and when all was complete the father realised that the apprentice had infact built a better church. He invited the apprentice to the roof of his own church to inspect and decide who had won but when they were on the roof together the father pushed him off the roof to his death. Anne was so heartbroken she later died and so the church her sweetheart built for her is named in her honour. The father was aparently later dead from alcohol poisoning as his daughter and everyone else disliked him. Heartbreaking but an interesting church story! We went home via literature street which was plaques on it dedicated to Lithuanian authors, and all the plaques are unique and interesting to imagine what kind of author would pick such a plaque.

Saturday morning we had arranged to meet Heath and Katina, my friends I had met in Riga, at the town hall so we could all go to the crazy Russian markets together. Steph and I had met a fellow Aussie, Nick, in the hostel so he came too. They were definately crazy with hand grenades, animal or people teeth for sale, nazi memorbilia, guns, rifles, broken musical instruments, vintage asian pornography books, you name it, it was here at the markets! I bought some cheap jewellery and we headed off to the KGB museum to read about their history. Luckily Katrina and Heath warned me about the killing room as there was video footage of people getting shot inngrphic detail in the execution cell. Not something I needed or wanted to see. Just being in the cells and seeing what was left and the conditions the people lived in was erie enough. We had Indian for lunch and headed over to the chocolate shop for tea and dessert.

When we came out the usual deserted and quiet streets were packed full of people heading into the town square. We walked 'upstream' against the tide of people before deciding something really exciting must be going on and changed our direction to follow the people. It turned out as becausd it was the 1st of December, the Vilnius christmas tree was going to be lit and ALL of Vilnius turned out to see it. There was a home made food stalls, people selling glow toys, children, family and people everywhere. We waited in the cold until finally the celebrations began. First came the olympic proportion fanfare for the lighting of the tree, then a dance demomstration, a phonecall to santa via skype and more dancing! We could understand nothing of what was being said but we all felt happy to be a part of some one elses christmas celebrations and traditions. We went back to our apartment and grabbed Rafael, Zeb and Jamie and went for an evening walk around town before having a family dinner of tacos! So delicious, and of course a few drinks and a movie night in the hostel.

For our last day in Lithuania we decided to hire a car to go and see the hill of crosses and also see the western island which looked into Kalingrad. Steph and I invited Nick and Katina and Heath so we all started out early in the morning with me as first driver to Siului. I made everyone nervous by saying "right side, right side" everytime we came to an intersection or turn off as it was my first time driving on the other side of the road with the steering wheel on the other side of the car. Very odd. The hill of crosses was amazing and we were all so glad we had made the effort to get here. We then had a quick lunch and decided to drive to the Western Isle, which Steph and I had thought there was a bridge to drive across but unfortunately we were mistaken and needed to buy tickets for the car ferry. It also gets dark so much sooner that by the time we arrived the sun was already setting. The island was also much much longer than we thought...by about an extra 40km. So by the time we arrived at the UNESCO dunes area it was pitch black night. Hmmm. We were all starving and had no idea where the road to the dunes was anyway so we stopped for dinner at a place on the beach which funnily enough was promoting Jacob's Creek wines from Australia. We asked the waitress for directions and headed off to see the dunes in the moonlight. Hmmm. Cloud cover meant complete darkness and 'chill your bones' winds ripping right through us. Oh and what dunes? Where? We managed to get photos of a massive tower which we couldn't actually see with our own eyes as it was too dark but Nick's flash picked it up. Haha So EPIC fail on the dunes, but the hill of crosses was well worth it. 6 hour drive back home, repack and sleep before my 7am flight next morning to Berlin.

---