Castles, Lakes and Grumpy Waitresses

From Riga to Vilnius........coach took about 4 hours along a single lane motorway through pouring rain and gusty winds. The journey seemed to fly by and we arrived in Vilnius via huge tower block estates that Kate got excited about. The rain still poured while we struggled to find our bus stop. But with no help from the grumpy tourist information lady, we spotted our bus stop and waited a couple of minutes before the old thing arrived, We were aiming for stop number seven, which we got off at, before finding out it was actually the 8th that was needed.

After a half hour of struggling to find our hostel, we checked in, had a confusing conversasion with the receptionist and dropped our bags off. We headed down the hill through the 'independant state of Uzopis', home of artists, drunks, druggies, stray dogs, squatters and now the Mayor. Apparantly it is a crazy place, but Kate and myself haven't really experianced that. We wandered around the little old town streets, grabbed a coffee and a lovely milkshake and set off on a little evening tour of Vilnius.

We headed down the hill through the 'independant state of Uzopis', home of artists, drunks, druggies, stray dogs, squatters and now the Mayor

Vilnius is very nice. Fairly small old town, lots of smallish churches, with a scattering of grand white govermental buildings. Again the cars are flash and expensive, lots of money post comunism. Service in restaurants and cafes is generally accepted as being terrible in Lithunia, and this was proved by our meal on the first night. Nice food, but grumpy almost mute like waitresses served us slowly, which aggrivated a tall man with long floppy hair who shouted and generally grunted in their direction. We then found a pub in Uzopis and had a pre bedtime pint.

Yesterday we went on a bus trip to Trakai, 30km away from Vilnius. Trakai is surrounded by lakes and is home to the only castle in Eastern Europe. It was a fairly pleasant place, the weather was really nice. Kate caught the sun and is on her way to looking 'Latino'. After taking lots of lovely photos we headed back to Vilnius and grabbed a couple of milkshakes, before discovering a little more of the Old Town. For tea we visited a Lituanian restaurant. Kate had the popular cold Beetroot soup and a Salad, and I had chicken soup in bread. I would say it was a little dissapointing, but still cheap.

Today we are going to visit the former KGB prison and torture chamber, know as the 'museum of genocide'. Could be interesting but will also be very harrowing. After that I think we are going to look around some churches, visit the Jewish population and then wait around until our bus to Gdansk in Poland leaves at 10:50 tonight. The journey to Gdansk is approximatley 12 hours and we are scheduled to arrive tomorrow morning at 9am. Its going to be a long day and night.

Kate and myself are spending 9 days in Poland. Starting in Gdansk, the 3 days in Wroclaw and the 4 days in Krakow. From Kracow we get the train to Prague and start to make our way south towards Austria and Hungary.

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Hope everybody is good and well back home. All the best, love Dave and Kate xxxx