Day 7 - Vilnius to Klaipeda

Our stay in the capital, Vilnius, was always to be one night, which meant we had only a couple of hours to walk through the old town and visit some of the main sites.

We said goodbye to Ali and Gos at breakfast as they would be heading, with Ahmad and Reza, to Riga and then on to Tallinn and Helsinki, while we went to Klaipeda. We will be sorry not to have them adding their fun and humour to the group.

Here is our hotel in Vilnius, the Hotel Artis.

Next door was this imposing government ministry building.

Our walk through the old part of Vilnius took us past the university and then the Presidential Palace.

A short distance on, we came to the city cathedral with its tall bell tower.

We went inside the cathedral and two things caught my eye. The first was the beautiful organ, in the organ loft high above the nave.

The second was a small side chapel that had the most magnificent domed ceiling as well as some milagros, charms left by the faithful who believe they have healing powers. They reminded Wendy of similar milagros she had seen in El Paso, Texas.

 

Outside the cathedral is the monument to Grand Duke Gediminas. He stands there with a sword in his hands alongside his horse. He is credited with founding Lithuania in the 14th century.

 

We then walked through the narrow streets of the city, past the Town Hall to the Gates of Dawn. The gate is the only one remaining from the original walled city and is revered by devout Catholics, who cross themselves every time they walk through. There is a small chapel above the gate and when we were there a service was being conducted.

The Town Hall

The Gates of Dawn

We returned to our car and drove out of the city heading for Kaunas, the second largest city in Lithuania. Wendy had sung with her choir in Kaunas a few years ago and wanted to see the city again. On the way, we went past a sign to Trakai which was once the country's capital. It is renowned for its castle which has been fully restored. So we made the 10kms detour, which turned out to be well worthwhile. The castle, which sits on its own island, is very beautiful, so much so that it is often described as Disney-like.

 

We spent about an hour in Trakai and then drove on to Kaunas about 60 kms away. We went to the old town and tried to find some of the places Wendy wanted to see again, unfortunately without much success! One of the statues in the centre of Kaunas.

We left Kaunas and took the motorway to Klaipeda, about 200kms to the west. On the way we saw this sign to Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave that lies between Lithuania and Poland on the Baltic.

Wendy was reading in one of our travel guides about the Curonian Spit, the very long sand bar that stretches south from Klaipeda to Kaliningrad with the border between the two countries running through the Spit. We thought we should visit the Spit today as it is south of Klaipeda and tomorrow we head north to Riga. When we arrived in Klaipeda, we discovered that we needed to take a ferry across to the Spit. We were in luck, as there was a ferry about to leave and after paying 42 Litas (4.5/£) we boarded the ferry for the 10 minute crossing.

 
We disembarked and drove south through dense pine woods that seem to run all along the Spit. We were tight on time as we wanted to catch the 6.30pm ferry, so we had to turn round without finding the famed beaches of the Spit. We were very disappointed as we drove the 40kms back to the ferry. Just before the terminal, Wendy saw a track leading into the woods and so we turned off the road to see where it would lead. Within half a mile we came to the sand dunes at the beach. We couldn't believe our luck as we climbed the dunes and saw the Baltic with a stupendous sandy beach stretching in both directions as far as you could see.

 

We spent about twenty minutes at the beach before returning to the car and a mad dash to the ferry terminal to catch the 6.30pm sailing. We made it with 2 minutes to spare!

Back in Klaipeda, we drove the 4kms to the Navalis Hotel, where the others had already checked in.

Another great day and tomorrow we enter our seventh country of the drive, Latvia.