Hotel Turne Siauliai

Kaimo Turizmo Sodyba "Svajokli&#371; Sl&#279;nis"<br>Nepriklausomyb&#279;s g. 96, Papil&#279;<br>Akmen&#279;s raj. LT-85243<br>8-698-45548<br>El-pa&#353;t as: <br> info@kaimo-sodyba.lt<br>www.kaimo-sodyb a.lt<br>

Siauliai (pronounced Show-lay) is about 140km north east from Vilnius - a further 10km from there town is a tiny place called Domanti - upon hopping off a local bus here - you have to walk an additional 2km along a single road that cuts through farmers fields to get to the Hill of Crosses. No-one knows how this place came about but it predates WW1, it's a mound ...

... one around, I located one lady and tried to explain that I was looking for a place to stay overnight, so if there were still any rooms free, one would do just fine. As usual, she didn't know the first thing about English, but she managed to get what I was after. So she took me to one of those white buildings, the smallest one and right by the main street, opened a door and showed me the room. True, it was pretty noisy since right on the opposite side of the window there was the ...

... are quite hot over here. Nobody was speeding. Actually, there were quite a few around, hiding with their radars, so we just pottered along for 200ish K's until we reached our destination Siauliai Now I know you are all expecting a write up on Siauliai, but we never went there, but 10 K's down the road was a monument I really wanted to see. History Lesson First. Back in the 14th century, on a little mound, someone placed a ...

... here. A very different 'sight', and well worth the visit. We went into the main town of Siaulia for one of the best meals we'd had in a while down in this underground cavern. Traditional homemade beetroot, cream and dill soup - the most fluoro pink dish you'll ever see, but just great. It was however a bit dampened by awaking the next morning with a flat battery! We'd accidentally ...

... counting of the crosses has now stopped with some of the crosses dating back to the 1800's. This is for me by far the highlight of our trip a simply ore inspiring place and a must see before you die whether religious or not, a tranquil garden in a hectic world no words or pictures could do it justice....

... a bird, it's a plane...NO its Adam-man the fast walker" they were saying. The sweet sound echoed in my ears for days. In the end everyone else was late anyway and I had made it on time. I sat down in the bright sun at the cathedral and read my book until they arrived. The big group that was meeting to go to the Hill of Crosses ended up being me, Kim (the American) and Sandrine (a French polyglot extraordinaire with 6 or 7 languages). They didn't want to hitch because ...

... to visit St. Peter's and Paul's Church. Siauliai also has some odd museums, the Cat Museum and Bicycle Museum, but they are closed on Mondays. Shucks. The church steps out of a fairy tale, with a 75 m spire (quite difficult to photograph in its entirety) flanked by two turrets. The white interior is nearly massive enough to merit cathedral status, with several enclaves dedicated to various saints and the Virgin ...

... as long to get here. While the train would have gotten me to Siauliai just before 9am, I ended up not arriving until after 12:30. It turns out though that it wasn't such a tremendous inconvenience. Siauliai is a rather drab city on the whole and most of its history got wiped off the map in World War II. A few early 20th century buildings remain, along with the odd church, but very little particularly stands out. The main draw is something entirely different that lies about 12km ...

... the dust. After that tasty goodness I had more than enough fuel to start trying to figure out how to get to the hill of crosses. A wee while later I was headed out to the taxi rank with a little sheet of paper saying, in Lithuanian, where I wanted to go, asking how much it would coast and if I could pay at the end. It also said on it that this should coast about 25-30lts (thanks again to the girl in the mall who did this for me!). The cabbie looked at it, nodded ...