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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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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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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Kaunas Hotel Magnus 11.40am 4 Sept just across the road from the bus station - very handy - and as train is some furtehr distance away bus to Vilnius is def. the go from here. After previous night in Klaipeda I went by train 3 hrs after very early breakfast, to Siaulai and the Hill of Crosses - its a pilgrimage sorta place with a small hill just covered with crosses. Bit underwhelming in terms of size - but its the details - thousands of crosses on every inch of it. Met on the train an Aussie woman/orig. Kiwi bloke on [View Full Entry]

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Kaunas, Lietuva (Lithuania) - 4 Sept.09 sitting on the bus leaving Kaunas to go to Vilnius the capital of Lithuania - rather later than I thought I would be, as it is almost 7pm so will be a rather late arrival into Vilnius, which is not the best thing for accommodation - but it has been so quiet most places I am not very worried and I have not had any problems anywhere - as the “season” has well and truly ended and people are just not travelling it seems - or spending money either! Kaunas has been a nice place [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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Well, that night was unlike all other nights. Rolled-up towels do not, it turns out, make great pillows. We slept horribly and woke early, and even with a breakfast stop and a coffee stop we still managed to get on a 10 AM bus to Kaunas. We rolled into town midday and called the manager of our apartment, who came to pick us up at the bus station (!) and take us to the place. Wow! This place was one of the nicest of the journey so far -- beautiful decor, a fairly well-stocked kitchen, and no major structural problems. More [View Full Entry]

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Ah! Waking up after having fallen asleep in a new place always makes me feel both refreshed and a little off-kilter. But this time it was in Klaipėda, and the town was just so gosh-darn cute we were feeling pretty good (slightly firm mattress notwithstanding). We made our way downstairs for our early-as-they-served-it breakfast in the same room as the guesthouse’s hostess. It’s strange having smørrebrød in the same room as a check-in desk, but the food was extremely tasty and duly inhaled. (Erin ponders: “What would American smørrebrød look like? I fear it would be an Eg [View Full Entry]

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We woke early today in prep for our trip to Klaipėda -- especially me, as my sore throat kept me from sleeping past 3:30. We grabbed a quick breakfast at home and made our way to the airport. Riga International is a pretty nice airport; they had a drugstore, which was important for acquiring some ibuprofen, and a post office, where we mailed a bunch of postcards, and a souvenir shop with some of the things we’d not been able to find elsewhere (a Latvia patch for me, a small bottle of Black Balzsams liqueur for Graham), and a cafe that [View Full Entry]

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