Vilnius and kayaking in rural Lithuania

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We arrived at the bus station in Vilnius in the late afternoon. The station is just south of the old town which is rather dodgy and unfortunately we are staying at an apartment quite close to it.

We eventually find the apartment which is in a gated community along with some crumbling, falling down little huts which we later discover are old soviet wood storage huts. The apartment is actually quite nice and new and modern luckily. We then walked through the old town, past many of the 65 churches in the old town to find a nice restaurant for dinner, and surprisingly there is plenty of choice.

After dinner we took a walk up to the top end of the old town to see the imposing Vilnius cathedral and walk up the hill to Gediminas hill where we got some great views of the city at dusk.

The next day was our kayaking adventure in Dzukija national park. We took a two hour train south west of vilnius to the small village of Marcinkonys before a short drive to the Ula river, a very shallow, winding and very long river which winds its way through the lush green forest. Our guide was very good and navigated us through some very difficult kayaking including ducking under fallen trees and getting over some submerged trees. We spent about 3 hours drifting through the river in a mix of glorious sunshine and pelting rain that apparently is not unusual for Lithuania. Along the way we didn't see much wildlife but we did see a deer and I copped a ripper mosquito bite! We saw some bubbling springs and many old wooden summer houses along the very serene journey. We wandered through the small village afterwards with its mostly wooden houses being small peasant farms and it was a fascinating insight into the real Lithuania outside of the main cities.

We got back to Vilnius quite late and exhausted. The next morning we walked around more of the old town and went to the impressive gates of dawn which are gates that include a catholic worship area above the gates. We went to the Museum of Tolerance, a large artwork display and descriptions of the plight of the Lithuanian Jews who had to fight off not just the Nazis but also the soviets and locals who wanted to rid Lithuania of them.

Unfortunately our flight to Poland was cancelled meaning we sat around the rather boring Vilnius airport before moving on to Warsaw.

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