Eldorado Apartments Vilnius

I got out early and was at the Gates of Dawn by 8:30. It's a religious landmark built into the wall that surrounds Vilnius old town. It's Sunday and mass was being performed in the small room/alcove that contains the metallic image of Mary. A long hallway with stairs leads up - and people stop on the stairs to kneel and pray. Once they get into the room they also drop to their knees and pray. It was interesting to me that more than one person, after ...

... stops on the train are really clearly marked so I'm not worried about missing my stop. I get to Vilnius and the first thing I do is get my ticket back to Warsaw. Wow was it easy. Then I get some money. I traded in 40 American dollars and got 100 and some litas. Pretty cool huh? Then I went to my hostel, which was easy to find. I get there and the guy puts me in a room. There is literally no one else in the entire hostel. My room had like 10 ...

... who was also up at 5am, then decided that I should just go to the bus depot to catch my bus to Riga. The bus ride was spent mostly sleeping, and I am now in Riga. My hostel has no reception around noon, so I am wasting time on the internet. This city is very, very beautiful, and there are fresh fruit and vegtable markets all around the central station. I bought some delicious globe grapes. I will probably now go journeying around the city, seeing if I can get myself lost.

... exhibits and museum are informative and very graphic. But we haven't even gotten started people. The basement of the building is where the KGB prison cells for political prisoners was, preserved/restored to its original glory. It was messed up. Solitary confinement, solitary water confinement, padded cells to first drive you nuts, and then make sure the insulation doesn't let out any of the screams. Thought provoking to say the least. A rather disturbing execution cell topped it off ...

... an enviable dose of invention and imagination, so in their own time they coolly put the church to use as a prison and a workshop. Only a few steps further, or three street numbers up the street, at Ausros Vartų gatvė 10, there was the orthodox church of the Holy Spirit, or Sv. Dvasios cerkvė - as the locals call it, the main Russian Orthodox Church of Lithuania. As almost every Orthodox church, it was a beauty. Open to public at the hour of my arrival, I entered ...

... was not a person to vouch for a good time even if the film she is in isn't that good. Of course, you don't discuss tastes. But I can safely say that the only episode of the widely touted "Sex And the City" series that I have seen in my life bored me to death. I saw it at the urge of some friends, who had sung odes to it, so eventually I gave in and decided to see what the fuss was all about. The result was that I came to a conclusion that the first episode I'd ...

... its charming restaurants and cafes tucked away in the pretty courtyards. Some of the restaurants are set in the old atmospheric cellars and carry medieval deco themes. The food is usually of a high quality and well presented and is inexpensive for most European travellers. Overall the city provides high standard restaurants, hotels and entertainment, yet everything here is affordable at low prices in comparison with Western European countries, which ...

... signs declaring recent EU membership. The stern officialdom and ramshackle functionalism has given way to a far more Scandinavian air. The flipside is that the weather's suddenly become decidedly more temperamental too - periods of gorgeous sun and mixed cloud cover, quickly interrupted by unexpected downpours of chilly rain. Welcome to northern Europe (and autumn, by the way!). I've knuckled down at the cozy confines of a relatively new hostel off the former Jewish ...

... Erica by going out for drinks with a group of non-stag-do English boys over for the week staying in our room. Started at a cool bar in an old cellar separated into different rooms with archways and comfy couches called Cozy. Before the pumpkin threatened I headed back to the hostel and Erica went off with the boys to the local bar where our room-mate worked that had a packed dance floor and apparently a 10:1 woman to man ...

... origins from the days when the Lithuanian state stretched from the Baltic sea to the Black sea) which turned out to actually be a small Cornish pasty. Funny. The other day trip wasn't ever so successful. I had heard that the geographical centre of Europe was located not far from Vilnius, and hearing of the Europas Park celebrating the fact, I made the natural leap and assumed they would be the same place. I was wrong. The Europas park turned out to be an open air sculpture park in a ...