Comfort Hotel Vilnius

... off the plane.<br><br> Landing was one of those blind affairs as the fog was still hanging around and the first glimpse I got of the ground was at around 100 feet or so, which is pretty close to get your first glimpse of land when coming down from 35,000 feet.<br><br> Just seen the office building where I am working for the next few days which is only a short walk from here. A short walk as long ...

... night shade of the earth&#8217;s curvature as we head south to Warsaw. Soon the midnight sun will just be a memory. I have yet to reach the Arctic Circle fully but may get there yet in Russia soon. The midnight sun is not the prize anyway; the aurora borealis is, and you need complete darkness for that. A little more warmth would be nice ...

... John Paul II came specially to visit. This houses a miracle-working icon of the Virgin, dating supposedly from the 14th century but apparently more likely from the 16th. Either way, people were coming & praying earnestly, and I saw several leaving with framed copies of the icon. After there we were walking back & on a whim decided to go in & try one of Vilnius' famed pancakes (crepes). We had a funny experience there. The menu had a lot of options. I decided to have a ...

... and get off with them!This strategy has worked well for us so far, and again in Vilnius, as after going through some not so nice areas on the bus, we arrive in the centre! So, guess where we headed then - you guessed it the Old Town!!Again some very lovely buildings in the Old Town, but to be honest, we weren't as impressed as we had been in Tallin &amp; Riga!The city is getting money spent on it, as it is the Capital of Culture 2009, but a lot of this is working ...

... and the baroque St.Casimirs church being the more prominent. St.Casimirs is the oldest church in the city and is dedicated to Lithuania's patron saint. Situated on the eastern edge of the old town is another example of the quirky nature of Vilnius, the district of Uzupis. Uzupis is an area that in 1998 was declared an unofficial/ official breakaway republic. The district is inhabited by the city's resident artists, dreamers, squatters and drunks ...

... just as I had assumed, there was nothing to keep my attention focused for long. Everything was neatly designed and equipped after a modern fashion, with indoor fountains, children's playground and so forth, but a café next to a shop, and a shop next to a restaurant leaves a person like me yawning. And not for the lack of oxygen. But clearly that too was a part of Vilnius, particularly if I take into account the fact that I had not seen that part on my first visit. In that context ...

... re all so trendy. I wound up with a nice pair of sparkly flats, on sale for $16. What a deal. Here's hoping they fit in my pack when I leave this place! Vilnius's Prague Factor: I loved Vilnius, I might even want to live here some day, but it's wasn't particularly Prague-like. The river doesn't run through the old town and being baroque, the old town has no gothic feel. Also, the city lacks a good restaurant ringed square. So visit Vilnius; it's a great place, it's just not Prague.

... 261; ir turb&#363;t siek tiek kalt&#279;s d&#279;l netvarkingo kemperio nuomojimo grauziamas mums joki&#371; priekaist&#371; net nebando tur&#279;t (O ar gal&#279;t&#371;? M&#363;s&#371; vienbalse nuomone - ne.). Taigi kelion&#279; baigiasi su nuotykiais, ta&#269;iau laimingai ir netgi nenuostolingai.

... we walked on, and happened upon a lovely coffee/chocolate shop. We were very cold by this state. Luckily was not raining, but it was still cloudy, and the temperature a lot colder than the day before. So we sipped our hot drinks and ate pieces of chocolate and warmed up quite quickly. On leaving the coffee shop, we saw our first tourists of the day, not surprisingly of the Asian kind. We then walked over to the castle, a dreamy ...