Lithuania

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Tired and cramped we arrived in Vilnius after the overnight bus journey. We made our way directly to our hostel where we went straight to bed for a few hours to recover.

A few hours later and feeling better we set out to explore Vilnius. Neither of us knew much about Lithuania, I remember hearing about all the run ins they had with the USSR, when they tried to regain their independence, but I was quite young and didn't really understand what was going on.

The city was certainly nice and good-looking, and boasted one of the largest old town centres in Europe. One thing we immediately noticed was the old town didn't seem particularly old. A great amount of work seemed to be under-way in order to (at least from what we could see), make the old town look very new. So instead of old winding streets with ancient cobblestones, we had large wide roads with brand spanking new paving slabs. Never the less it seemed like a lovely town.

One area that we found that Lithuania did seem to excel was with art and general quirkiness. A whole section of town has been declared an independent republic, this area of Uzipis is filled with art studios and strange and wonderful things. Certainly a pleasant diversion from the gleaming new streets of the old town.

Arriving in the Baltics, we also started to meet people who were following similar routes to us, many people either coming from or going to Russia, even people doing longer worldwide stints like us. Like the French bloke (artist), who was travelling around the world doing paintings on commission (he planned to buy a horse in Mongolia and ride to China, now that sounds like an adventure).
We also met a bloke who had managed to steal most of our ideas, and had copied a lot of our entire itinerary. He was travelling from Spain to Oz though, and even managed to leave at pretty much the same time as us. Still we decided to try and meet up with Trevor for the odd beer as we travelled the world. (It must be noted that Trevor seems to think that we stole his ideas too, because obviously no one else has ever attempted this kind of thing before).

After a couple of good nights out we boarded our bus to the next baltic state in the route, Latvia, where we hoped to do more of the same thing.

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Photos

Old men playing chess
Throughout Europe we have often seen people playing chess in a park, usually the players are vastly outnumbered by onlookers giving lots of advice.

Angel
A statue in the Independent Republic of Uzupis

Artwork
Artwork in Uzupis

Creepy
Not sure who these buggers are, but I woudnt want to meet them in a dark alley

Hmmm
I think this is art? Or maybe Science? Not quite sure ...