A Religious Experience?

Trip Start Aug 31, 2007

Trip End Apr 19, 2008

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Where I stayed

Klaipeda Travellers Guesthouse

(Siauliai hotels)

Flag of Lithuania Siauliai, Lithuania
Monday, September 17, 2007

Today, I visited Lithuania's hit or miss attraction, and with me, I think it was a miss. The Hill of Crosses is just outside Siauliai (don't ask me how to say it, I don't know). Crosses began to appear on the hill in the mid-1800s, though during Soviet times, attempts were made to detroy them. Each day, the Soviets would bulldoze the site, and each night, brave Lithuanians would sneak up and plant more crosses as a sign of resistance to the Soviet regieme. The Pope visited the hill in 1993 and today there are more than a million crosses on it, from six inches to six feet or more in height. You can even buy a cross in the parking lot and plant it yourself (I opted not to). Some crosses are devotional, some are folk art masterpieces, and some are memorials, many originally to loved ones deported to Siberia during the occupation.

I appreciate that the site is moving to many, but I just found it weird. The density of crosses was too great to appreciate each individually, leaving me to meander aimlessly for fifteen minutes before heading back to town. Nonetheless, I'm glad I visited as everyone in Vilnius gave it rave reviews and I would have felt I was missing something, had I not come.

With time to kill before my bus to Klaipeda, I opted 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. It's one of my favourite churches this trip and, in my opinion, way cooler than a cross-studded hill.

Back at the bus station, I tried to buy a ticket for Klaipeda, same as I have all over the Baltics, but no, the teller tells me I have to do this on the bus. The tellers seem to make these decisions at random, suddenly refusing to issue tickets. I went to Trakai with a San Fransican yesterday, and I bought my ticket at the window just fine, but when he tried to do the same right after me, he was told he had to buy it on the bus. I blame the Soviets.

The Lonely Planet authors were clearly confused when they said it was 2 hours from Siauliai to Klaipeda, but we rolled in after three and a half hours and I settled into the klaipeda Traveller's Hostel, which is a perfectly fine place to spend the night, though the location's lousy.