Lithuania almost didn't make the cut for this tour. We chose to go to Vilnius because it was reckoned to be the easiest city to obtain a visa for neighbouring Belarus. As it was, we ended up getting them before we left home but rather than realign our meticulously-planned itinerary, we decided to give it a go. We scheduled four nights here, and as the frustratingly pedestrian train gradually clunked through mile after mile of unremarkable countryside, we confided in each other that 96 hours may be excessive. For Vilnius is not a big city. And according to our Lonely Planet [View Full Entry]

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Sorry to inundate you with 3 blogs over the weekend, but since this trip was broken up into different parts; I figure I would do a few small blogs instead of one big one. And really, I’m just trying to catch you all up on everything. I have actually been solo for about 3 days now in the Ukraine, and the guys are probably on flight home right now. Before I blog about Ukraine, I need to get the last part of the bachelor party trip down. For some reason we thought the drive from Warsaw to Vilnius would only be [View Full Entry]

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Upon arriving late in the evening in Vilnius, we decided to head straight out for a quick beer before dinner. We headed for the Uzupis region of the city, declared an unofficial independent republic by the local artists, philosophers and drunks! After a couple of beers and dinner later we headed further into the Old Town. Stumbling across an inviting looking pub, and ordering more beers, Tom decided that it'd be a good idea to try a local delicacy - Pigs ears with split peas, even he found it difficult to swallow The next day was our sightseeing day, Vilnius is [View Full Entry]

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J has this strange rule where you are not supposed to talk to her until she talks to you in the morning; approximately 20minutes after waking up. Apparently the rule applies to her family too... I woke up around 0640am, J was already up and she spoke to me. She had obviously woken up earlier and had already been through her hibernation period. We were taking the 0815am train to Vilnius. So had to take the bus from J's place at 0737am to the train station Kaunas 1. The train time Kaunas-Vilnius was about 1hr 50mins and it costs about 13.5 [View Full Entry]

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I arrived in Vilnius last Wednesday to 30 degree heat. The hostel was really easy to find luckily and right next to the bus station which was handy. I later found out that this part of Vilnius was a bit notorious as being dangerous (maybe thats why it was the cheapest!), but I never really felt threatened by anyone. I spent most of the afternoon just walking around the old town taking photos. The architecture is stunning and I think you could easily spend a couple of days just exploring all the old streets, churches and cathedrals. Hopefully I'll be able [View Full Entry]

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Finally, Lithuania So we left Riga (again) hoping that, as nice as the city is, we wouldn't have to return - at least not under similar circumstances... It was back to our old friend Eurolines where for once the bus driver wasn't annoyed that we actually had baggage when travelling internationally and even whipped out some baggage tags which proved useless because it was still very much a save and grab at the other end anyway... The journey was fairly long at about 5hrs but there was some mild entertainment by watching a drunk lithuanian and chinese student communicate for almost [View Full Entry]

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3 months have passed since i last posted....i don't know where they went, it seems that time just passes...without even notice. Well, here's what happened, In the last months i have been in Romania and i returned to Vilnius just a bit over a month ago. In Romania i had some great time taking 32 Exams and finally finishing my university....well, this was the main reason of going to Romania, i will not tallk about school now, because it is over and besides the fact that i was spending 6-7 hours every day in school nothing much interesting... So besides school [View Full Entry]

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As i was telling you i spent my last month in a place called Druskininkai. south of Lithuania very close to the Belorussian border, sometimes our phones were telling us that we are in Belarus..So one month there i was spending my time having a "working vacation" after one full year, so i was there as "camp instructor" and "English teacher". The best part out of it is that i had a lot of fun, i met new people and made new friends some maybe even more than friends, i discovered people that become very close to me and now [View Full Entry]

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Bueno después de otros 15 días tengo miles de cosas que contar, y el tema de este blog es: que hago cuando no estoy viajando??, no crean que me quedo en la casa durmiendo y chateando en Internet, olvídenlo aquí hay muchas actividades que hacer, y mas que describirles las actividades que por supuesto lo voy hacer es mas que vean las fotos, bueno los fines de semana que no viajo que hago? aquí hay un gran menú, Me voy a ver cine a ver Indiana Dounsas. Me voy para las ferias o actividades de Vilnius que se hacen en diferentes [View Full Entry]

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We drove through Poland, past Bialystok and had lunch in Augustow before reaching Vilnius in the late afternoon. We explored the city in the evening in the sunshine, and again the next morning in the pouring rain! The cathedral square with its bell tower is really pretty, as is the old town with its many churches. Fortunately the weather changed very quickly and we set off for Trakai castle in the sunshine, to find that it really does look exactly like the photo on the front of the rough guide! We went around the castle, and then walked around the island [View Full Entry]

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