A day trip from Riga to Vilnius

After an hour we were at the border posts, where the local Lithuanian police checked my passport and no stamp. Even when asking. Same with the way back I am afraid.
Snow kept falling, but the transport just keeps moving in this part of the world.

A quick stop at Panev--ys, and off we were again to Vilnius. First glance, Lithuania seems to be like Latvia. The language, the people, the buildings and the prices of goods. Not like Estonia.

We got off at the main bus station which is next to the train station. Very friendly here. The local currency exchange place just closed which means I had to get local currency out of the ATM machine.

I asked for 200Lits. (Around £42, 40lvl) but it gave me two 100lit notes. What the hell am I going to do with this! This country is even cheaper than Latvia, for transport, for food and goods (apart from cigarettes).

I had to go into the local PAREX bank at the train station which is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week all year round. It never closes. That is the first bank I have ever seen to do this kind of service. Anyway, they kindly exchange my money for smaller amounts and spoke good English.

A walk in the snowy old town and with limited time left as it was now late afternoon and the sun was setting, I and Olga wanted to visit the KGB museum, which closes at 5pm. After a while, and getting cold, me and Olga got bored of walking and decided to get a taxi.

Olga was surprised with the amount of people who spoke Russian here. It is 6% here in Lithuania but 30% in Estonia and Latvia.

Anyway, a taxi journey across town, which included some beautiful sights of the three crosses, the cathedrals and the television tower, we were outside the KGB Museum. The taxi journey cost me 20lits, which seemed expensive, until Olga said it was around 2lvl.

We entered the museum, paid a small fee and went straight downstairs to the KGB prison. This was a real KGB place. The prison cells were small and cramp. It was cold. It was dreary. Olga had fun in the communications room. Further into the prison, there were torture rooms, with rooms which had straight jackets and a small pole to stand on, and if you fell, they would be cold icy water waiting for you.

I liked cell if you were really bad. No bed. Just a stall and a piece of wood hanging off the wall. It was around 6ft by 4ft wide. A hole in the floor was the toilet.

There was a room with bags of shredded paper, which was old KGB files which were destroyed before fleeing when the independence of Lithuania was in force back in 1991.

After the KGB Museum, we walked back into the old town in the heavy snow. We wanted to eat as it was early evening. Guess what, we landed at another Double Coffee. We did try it, as we did Latvia and Estonia. The staff is friendly, food is good, and is cheaper than Latvia.

We walked across the town looking in souvenir shops for sew on badges. Then to kill the other two hours late at night, we went to the local cinema to watch déjà vu.

When walking around the town, we noticed everything closed earlier compared to Riga, and not much of nightlife.

Like I said, we had an afternoon and evening here, but it was so cold and dark to do many things which we had planned to do. So in a few months time, I and Olga are planning to go back and give it a weekend. It looks nice, things to do, and is impressive compared. This was a lot better than the Estonia trip.

We caught the 2145 bus back to Riga, where it was just me, Olga, another passenger and the bus driver, arriving back at Riga at 0130. It was still snowing when we got back. Time for some sleep