To Vilnius and the KGB museum

Vilnius is another UNESCO World Heritage Site, it has a legacy of history going back to the medieval age. Supposed to have very interesting architecture here.

Another border crossing today from Latvia to Lithuania. The bus stopped for the border agent to come onboard to collect our passports and then the bus waited on the Lithuanian side and the passports were returned a few minutes later.  So we are officially in Lithuania. The largest of the 3 Baltic states, with 3.6 million people.  It's a bit silly for me to think about countries with 1-5 million people, since I just returned from China and almost any old city there has several million people, if not tens of millions! But the people of these 3 countries are really quite different in heritage and had their own languages.

Being small gave them the advantage of agility, like having wi-fi access widely available; but also the disadvantage of being at the mercy of stronger and bigger neighbors.

Lithuania had been part of the Polish-Lithuania commonwealth after being a huge and independent empire in medieval times, the capital city Vilnius was founded in 1323. Alternately under great influence by the Poles,  the Russians, and sometimes the Germans over the centuries, it was the only country which saw bloodshed (12 died) in 1991 in their quest to become independent from the Soviets. They were the most generous to the Russians left in their country after becoming independent, allowing the Russians to become citizens. Even so, its capital has the smallest percentage (20% of the 600,000 population) of Russians today.

In pre-WWII days, a large Jewish community existed in the country at almost 200,000, and after being wiped out by the Nazis only about 5000 Jews remain today in all of Lithuania.

About 20km into Lithuania we made a rest stop at Birzai where there was a small "farm museum" and zoo. There were a couple of ostriches, brown bears and deer. Then we stopped a few miles down at a small airport north of Panevezys where there were several leftover Soviet era planes and helicopters. Our tour bus driver was also a private pilot so he knew and paid attention to such things like probably all private pilots do! So my husband Kevin enjoyed looking at the airplanes there.

A note on the roads we have travelled from Tallinn to Vilnius. The guidebook I had on the Baltics was a 2004 version and said the road conditions were bad.

However, since joining the EU, the Baltic nations have received grants to improve their infrastructures, and the main roads between the capitals were definitely high on the list so they have been improved. Other than some "construction" areas, the roads were smooth and problem-free. There was not that much traffic either.

We arrived in Vilnius a couple of hours latere, had a late lunch and went to visit the KGB museum.  It is also known as the Museum of Genocide Victims. Please see the separate review on this museum for more.

Our hotel the Radisson was at the center of town. After resting a little before dinner, we ate dinner at the hotel restaurant, which was right by the street looking like a winter garden. The Greenland shrimp salad with avocados, bacon bits, pine nuts and cherry tomatos was one of the best salads I have had, the grilled lamb ribs were also good.

Dad had fresh tasty oysters, and the peach melba desserts got rave reviews (I had ice cream). All for a price that would be average in terms of US $.

At dinner time we had a summer storm which passed quickly, followed by a beautiful rainbow. A group of young pretty women in white nurse or red cross uniforms went by, and later came by in rickshaws, they were happy and waved at everyone who all had to look at them because they were very striking. And we even saw people on segways going down the street, presumbly you can rent them somewhere.