Hi Everybody! I am going to get Walt to write a summary of his visit to Chernobyl later. This is a very old computer. I am having to hit most keys more than once. I apologize in advance for errors. I do not always have time to proofread my entries. I know the when to use "there and their." I cannot tell you why I sometimes type the wrong letters. I have had to go back repeatedly on this blog and reinsert apostrophes and ts. They keep disappearing. Our train trip from Warsaw to Vilnius was uneventful. The scenery was pretty [View Full Entry]

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So after we arrived in Vilnius on Tuesday, we ended up spending most of the morning in the Hostel,just catching up on things. To be honest it was really niceto just chill out for the day as we had been so busy so far.The hostel were really great and let us hang around until there were beds free, they had quite a big kitchen where a lot of other guests were hanging out- everyone we met so far was australian, all really nice people. We eventually ventured out late afternoon. The hostel had these city maps called spy maps, and on [View Full Entry]

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In keeping with our desire to see a national park in each country, we’d mentally marked down this as the day to make a trek out to Aukstaitija National Park. However, at the last minute we chickened out of the 2-hour bus trip that would drop us several km away from the park, and decided to visit Trakai National Historic Park instead, a preserve on a peninsula that was a mere 40-minute train ride out of town. With two castles, a ton of lakes, and an obscure sect of Judaism calling it home, we figured it would be the perfect fit, [View Full Entry]

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yes - more photos - this is for Bob (see comments page). Here's one of my room key - its on a quite cute fluffy thing that may or may not have been formerly attached to a small animal [View Full Entry]

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Vilnius - the slow finale yes well it was a very slow start - as well as being an Accidental Tourist I have also become a less than fired up get outta the door one. Have to set an alarm almost to get up for breakfast at 10 - then take more than 3 hours to get out the door. Mind you (he says as an excuse) the weather here has been rather spotty. Its about midnight (I work hard at this y'know) and there have just been some spots of rain - which is better than last night when the [View Full Entry]

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On our second morning in Vilnius, we still had no hot water, so we called our apartment manager to see what she could do. For some reason I don’t totally understand, calling a plumber was not an option, so she drove us to an unrented apartment so we could shower. Again, it was a beautiful place with some weird flaws, like a shallow recess behind the tub with no drain, so after the shower, Graham wound up bailing a whole mess of water back into the tub with a juice glass. Well, whatever, at least we were clean. Back to Double [View Full Entry]

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Saturday night fever - or it could have been without the Rivers stowaway parka in the camera bag - not to mention the pullout cover for the camera bag to keep it a little drier. Cos it did get a little wet here later today - in fact the light rain started about 6pm and was around while I climbed the hill to the fortress tower Gediminas Castle. However when I walked down and into the bottom of the town main street leading up to the main square it really started to pour down - and it was heavy man! I [View Full Entry]

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Due to being completely wiped from the previous day, and since we had the relative luxury of being in one place for FOUR WHOLE NIGHTS, we slept in the next morning. After rolling out of bed and shaking most of the cranky out of our collective noggins, we descended onto the town of Vilnius. Like most Old Towns®, this one also has plenty of the twisty passages, all alike, that Americans seem to crave about Europe. The difference here was that not only are many of the streets open to cars, some roads through Old Town are full-fledged boulevards, with multiple [View Full Entry]

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To make up for only getting one night in Kaunas, we decided to borrow a little bit from our first day in Vilnius (we’ve got 4 on the agenda, after all) and wait til the evening to hop on the bus. We had a relatively relaxed morning, and headed first to the bus station to leave our luggage in storage for the day. That was a bit of an adventure -- the trolleybus was so crowded Graham almost didn’t make it on, and then we spent the entire ride a bit, er, compressed. I think my backpack spent the ride making [View Full Entry]

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Lithuania: 20th - 25th July 2009 In order to keep up with our travels, this blog will be short and sweet. After the "72 Hours" we were happy to arrive in Vilnius, Lithuania's capital. We had a very comfortable apartment that was extremely close to the "old town". Once again, bikes are a fantastic way to see this city. This is where we also started off with the Baltic cuisine, which was a pleasant surprise. Armed with maps and books of the city, off we went. Vilnius was in brilliant renovated status, to the point it seemed almost too brilliant, with [View Full Entry]

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