Congress Hotel Vilnius

... its not raining of course! Spotted some English graffiti on the side of a building which looked out of place for a number of reasons. One, well, it was here in Vilnius, how? Second, it was on a building that was not exactly on what you would call a main walkway so some effort went in to putting it there, why?<br><br> Planning to spend the evening in the hotel, bit of dinner and an early night I think.<br>

... and August, even September, has plenty of that. You can get a RT LAX-Moscow for less than $700. The visa&#8217;s extra, cost and hassle. Living on the road may keep you free, but that doesn&#8217;t mean that it IS free&#8230; They say that men got buried with their horses here up until the 14th century. What more do you need to know? Stay tuned.

... with apple. David wanted a crepe with apple and ice-cream. Now you could have a crepe with apple or a crepe with ice-cream but we had great difficulty (mainly conveyed with pointing and counting on fingers etc) trying to explain what we each wanted. After the waiter left, I said to David "what do you think are the odds of us getting what we wanted?" He thought high, I did not. When our order came - I had one wrapped up crepe with apple inside. David had a pancake ...

... early evening and trust me another day in Liepaja would not be a highlight. So it was about 3.5 hours on the bus back to Riga then getting another bus to Klaipeda. This one took about 4.5 hours. It turned into nearly 9 hours of travelling to get to a place that was probably only 3 hours from where I started but that's the way it goes sometimes. When I finally arrived in Klaipeda, it was a quiet evening as there isn't a whole lot to do there. The reason for going there at all lies ...

... There was a lot more noticeable poverty in Vilnius than we noticed in other places, with many people begging on the streets or drunk by the supermarket - not a pretty site, and one I'm sure they're working on to rectify!I guess this just comes with Lithuania being the largest country in the Baltics, and therefore just takes longer to rebuild! Also, there definitely aren't the number of bars that there are in the other Baltic capitals, which doesn't bode as well ...

... their own tongue-in-cheek president, anthem, flags and a 41 point constitution. I wonder if I could get away with setting up my own country back home, the independent and breakaway republic of Leitrim or FIRM Former Irish Republic of Manorhamilton. I think it's got a nice ring to it, don't you? Later in the night I roped the guys in the hostel into a night on the town. The hostel was organising these local guy's that would come and pick you up and ...

... was most certainly worth my while. And when I add to it that, contrary to critical reviews, I liked "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" very much, and that I immensely enjoyed myself for two hours in the world reigned by a Lion, where the main villain is a Snow Queen and which abounds with talking beavers, musically gifted pans, centaurs and other assorted, equally quirky creatures, then I can safely say that my time in the "Forum Plaza" was really pleasant.

Not much was planned for today - but we did need to kill time until our night bus. Today wasn't my day - I spilled juice all over my journal at breakfast, and then I ripped the curtain in the room. For a brief moment, I knew what it felt like to be Mary ... We took our backpacks to the train station to store them for the day. On the way out of the old town, a nice old guy told us "You're going the wrong way - Vilnius ...

This time we are on Ecolines bus for 4 hour trip to Vilnius and this bus has a tuck shop and the conductress is the waitress and they give you numbered luggage tags, very professional indeed. No customs dogs this time but saw tonnes more storks and they have many windfarms but no mountains. On arrival in Vilnius we walked to our hotel as C. had it all worked out this time and led us there as if it was his home town. Staying in Old town in ...

... built on an island in one of the many lakes surrounding the area. We crossed the two bridges taking us to the castle, and decided that after all the effort we had gone to, we were going to pay the entrance fee to go inside. A nice castle on the inside, but the museum works did bore us, as there was little info about the history of the castle. However when the cutest little kitten you have ever seen, bounded up to us, it was all ...