Atrium Hotel Vilnius

... ladder of Tom's bunk..! Lol.

Saturday 19th-
After a good 12 hours sleep we had a breakfast of cereal and cheese and ham toastie...we bought an all day travel ticket for under 2 pounds, and took the metro to Ratusz Arsenal (I couldn't give a Ratusz Arsenal about it....no....? lol) to see the Old Town. It was very pretty, despite the fact that its mostly reconstructed after being destroyed in WWII. There were lots of tourists around there, and some in horse ...

... had gotten irritable yet, so the trip was going well. Once we walked around the bus station a couple of times and finally found the platform (seriously...the only place where the number 19 was located was on ONE side of a sign...obviously we didn't see that, so we asked someone and she kinda looked at me like I was an idiot, which I felt was unfair given the obscurity of the location), we got onto the bus with our bag of food and drinks and settled in for the ~8 hour trip to Warsaw.

... of it, anything from a tree sized... well.. tree of amber, to a toothpick with a bit of amber jammed on to the end. The amber was a bit pricey though. Just behind the market square is a hill fort, I can't recall what it is called, but Danny and myself climbed to the top, (even though our blisters were close to working thier way to the bone), took a few photo's of the view, tried to break in (we couldn't, it was obviously a well constructed fort ...

... to take me to one of the largest green areas of Vilnius - Karolinðkiø Park. In its on way, the day was splendid, so we were not the only ones there. When the wind died down, in spite of -8°C you would think you can dress down to sweater only. In such moments we ran in the snow like kids and, of course, searched precisely for those untrodden spots. But as soon as the wind picked up, the winter would menacingly bare its teeth and it felt as if no amount of clothing sufficed to fully ...

... didn't feel like going out. Besides, I couldn't go with Ruta anyway. So I had all the reasons to stay put. "I'll try to rush it," she said. "So we can go out somewhere this evening." "Don't worry," I said. "Just take your time." And take it she did. When she returned home, it was dark. Of course, it didn't mean it was way too late. On these latitudes it gets dark in winter sooner ...

... du centre de la capitale lithuanienne !! Donc nous voila entre dans les pays baltes avec un 1er changement de fuseau horaire ! Bref on se pose dans une cite universitaire ouverte au gens de passage genre celle de Gdantsk et hop un petit reperage en ville, visite en touriste puis apres une biere ou 2 dans la rue on va se poser dans un bar qui retransmet un match de la coupe d'europe de basket : Lithuanie-France !!! Bon la france s'est ...

... than the ones we saw in Gdansk or Krynica Morska. In our 2+ days in Vilnius, we usually got back to our dormitory between 2 and 3 AM, and even though we had a 40 minute walk to the Old Town, we felt completely safe and secure walking the streets late at night. We stayed out late and ate late. Some bars were open until 5 AM and still serving food. There seems to be a big push to bring a big tourist boom to Vilnius and all of Lithuania for 2009. Come see it before the crowds get here.

Vilnius (population 600K), the capital city of Lithuania, is a 5-hour bus ride from Riga. The hostel is conveniently located some 300 yards from the bus station. I spent a whole day exploring the sights of the old town with a Japanese guy (that I previously met on the Tallinn to Riga bus), the Japanese way - a lot of sights to cover, a lot of photos ...