Lithuania: Vilnius

Saturday 1st July

We're heading today towards country number 5. Already!! Poland has been both good and not so good. The country is great but I'm afraid we've found most people are a tad unfriendly. Not due to communication problems tho'. there appears to be a total reticence against making any form of conversation except for the younger set, but then only if they have consumed at least 2litres of beer! Everyone is reserved and treat strangers with utter scepticism.  We hear things like: 'What on earth would you want to travel in Poland for'? When we tell them - 'To visit your beautiful country', they just cannot conceive that we'd want to do that! Very strange. Their habit of staring and analyzing you is unnerving sometimes. They do it to everyone, even their own people. Makes us feel like we've arrived from another planet. Anyway, we left the lakes area very early to get a head start to Vilnius in Lithuania. I bought our bus tickets but on checking the change etc... the bus driver had charged us for 3 people. Of course I confronted him and the chap utterly refused to refund me for the extra ticket. We patiently tried to explain the situation, showing him we were only 2 people, holding up 2 fingers on our hand, even counting in German [some Poles understand German], but he just sat in his seat and stared at us!! We refused to sit down until we had our money back. A lady in the front seat could see what was happening and tried to make him understand that it was all a communication misunderstanding, but he was convinced that there WAS a 3rd person outside - he kept looking out the door! We stood our ground and waited... The whole bus was intrigued by now! When the driver was due to leave and could see no 3rd person, he eventually refunded us the money but not without a huff!! He obviously has a distrust of backpackers or foreigners generally. We thanked him, very nicely and the Polish lady too and were on our way! 2 hours later we arrived at a town near the Lithuanian border where we were to board a train to Vilnius. Again another saga!! David did the ticket purchasing this time. He found out the info we needed from the info counter then went to buy the tickets, at a separate counter. The old bat behind the glass just stared at him, mumbled something in Polish and refused to serve him!! David just stood there hoping she was going to 'finish what she was doing', then help him. No chance. Nothing. She just sat, head down in some paperwork and ignored him! David went back to the info lady and told her that the other women wouldn't sell him tickets. She then came around to the 'old bats' counter, punched in our ticket information on the computer there and let the tickets print out. She then walked away. Doing this, forced the 'old bat' to complete the sale, give us our tickets and take our money! No words were spoken between these 2 ladies, no queries made as to why she was treating customers in such a way! Strange. Almost as if this is a normal occurrence. Anyway, we had our tickets so we were happy.

More Churches, Old Towns, Castles and Frank Zappa

We had a long wait for the train and then it arrived 40 minutes late. We started to board but some kind chap came running up to us saying 'not this carriage.. this one'!! Turned out that the train was disconnecting some coaches and we were climbing into the wrong ones!! Not sure where we would have landed up! At least some Polish people have a heart. Just before the invisible border, on the train, the passport control guy appeared, complete with camouflage outfits! Our passports were swiped. We were officially out of Poland. Then another one came along, checked them again and we were officially in Lithuania! At a town in Lithuania we changed to a local train and what a great train it was. Wooden paneling and very spacious seats. Also there was a huge transformation in the people. They smile, are friendly and are helpful. So noticeable after the Polish people! Suddenly we'd jumped a time zone. [+1hr] but didn't realize it straight away. On the train are samovars - huge urns of constant free hot water! We know the Russian trains have these but were surprised to find them here already. A great service as we can take supplies of tea, coffee, noodles etc... without having to buy anything extra.

We arrived in Vilnius and found the bus stop to take us to the hostel. David went to check some info with another bus driver and what a helpful man he was. He went totally out of his way to make sure we were on the right bus. He climbed out of his bus, spoke to others, gave us his own personal bus map and even asked some of our fellow passengers to point us in the right directions once we were on the bus and tell us exactly where to get off! We've heard about Lithuanian's helpfulness but this was so unexpected! The bus driver wouldn't even take our money for the ride, so we got that for free!! What a welcome to this country. Really makes you feel good.

Sunday 2nd July

Vilnius, city of a hundred churches with the Old Town alone having over 40 of them. As has become our '1st day ritual' in a new city, we did an orienteering walkabout to suss out the place. No particular plan, just wander around, purposely getting 'lost' along the way and picking out what we'd like to see more thoroughly.

Monday 3rd July

Vilnius is in the throes of restoration. A process that most other 'old towns' in Europe have already been through. In a way this makes walking around even more exciting really because we are still seeing the ancient old churches and castles in their natural state of disrepair. There are only so many churches you can go into, as you tend to get totally 'churched out'! A few are worth mentioning tho'. The Cathedral of Vilnius, The Churches of St Anne and the Church of St Francis and St Bernadino. Also the Dominican Church of The Holy Spirit. Some would say 'a church is a church' and if you've seen one, you've seen them all! That's not always the case tho'. St Annes has been standing here for 5 centuries and has not yet been restored [they are busy with that now]. To see a place like this just as it was so very long ago, adds an air of mystery and timelessness that other churches don't have. The walls inside are crumbling away, the frescoes on the walls are faded and the wooden beams and wooden pulpit are now just rickety structures. This church was once used for defensive purposes too, and you can see the rows of shooting apertures that have been preserved high up in the eaves. We popped into the Dominican Church of the Holy Spirit and were overwhelmed by the almost 'over the top' ornateness of its baroque interior. Huge statues and heavy gold trimmings everywhere. Having had our fill of churches we took a walk up the hill behind the Cathedral to the Gediminas Tower [who was the founder of the city]. It's part of the old defensive wall and castle, which is also now in the process of being restored. There are fantastic views from up here. We then decided to something different. Go and seek out the statue of Frank Zappa!! The crazy eccentric musician never lived here but ardent fans made the statue in his remembrance. With difficulty we found it, next to a small car park in Vilnius Square! A pretty good replica standing in front of a wall mural of some really psychedelic hippie type scene! An interesting find. Then endless pavement pounding kills the feet so we hit the trail back to the hostel via Uzupis, which is a bohemian area and a self-proclaimed republic, filled with artists, weirdos and river cafes. A strange district with quite a unique atmosphere.

Tuesday 4th July

Trakai, once the capital of Lithuania, is one of those fairytale places like Neuscwangau in Bavaria. We took a day trip out to this magical place filled with lakes and islands. The main attractions being Trakai castle which sits in the middle of a lake on it's own island. The tranquil beauty here is contagious. People doze at lakeside cafes, locals go about their business, swans glide past, birds perch peacefully on overhanging branches and canoes cruise along. A wonderful village where a religious sect called The Karaites have been living since the 14th century. They live in wooden houses with a distinctive design and painted wonderfully bright colours.