Day 2 in Vilnius

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Ardith is not feeling well.  We ate breakfast in the lower level of our hotel, and she came back to our room while Jim went out to change money, or at least that was his excuse.   He left at about 9am  when the Old Town area was just waking up.   Places that were jammed with people last night were nearly deserted.

  Merchants were just setting up their wares.

The fountain that was filled with people enjoying themselves now just had one dad taking a picture of his daughter.

 Two park benches were occupied by guys who appeared to be sleeping, but didn't seem homeless.  Perhaps they were recovering from the night before.

Jim saw a huge log in the park and questioned why it was there.  A half hour later, he saw the other side and understood.

Jim's camera wasn't quick enough to catch the fronts of these 3 policemen.  They each had a large cup of coffee in one hand as they navigated their Segways  through the park.

Oh, right, he was sent out to change money.  In St. Petersburg, Tallinn and Riga, there were money changing shops densely distributed though the areas that tourists visit.  He couldn't find any such place here.  He went to the tourist information and they said that only banks change money, by law.  In Helsinki, he had to pay 5 Euros ($7) in addition to the split between buy and sell rates.  The woman in the office said the most any bank charges is $1.20.  The bank Jim chose charged 80 cents.

There is a lot of repaving and other cleanup going on in the city. The European Union is having its summit meeting here in November and Lithuania has been given funds to spruce things up.

 Workers can't work continuously - they need a break from time-to-time.

Jim has seen several women who found peaceful places to read.  When he was showing these pictures to Ardith, he questioned why he hasn't seen men doing that.  She said that is because they are always lying down somewhere.

 The biggest public space in the city is Cathedral square, encompassing the Catholic cathedral and its bell tower.  The country is 80% Catholic, the bell tower was once part of the city's defensive walls.

Several time we have seen tour groups whose leader uses a microphone and transmitter.  The participants all wear earphones to hear her.  This is an especially good solution in crowded places, but is also useful for dealing with stragglers.  Jim saw one group where 2 women were a half block behind, but seemed to be paying attention to the leader.

Jim watched 2 young teens photograph a merchant's wares, so he did too.

 An hour after he had been down a nearly empty main street, Jim got caught in 2 very large tour groups going in opposite directions on a moderate width sidewalk.

Minutes later, he passed a cafe where 2 young women had been sipping coffee early in his trip.  More than an hour later, they were still there without apparently consumed anything more.  Its a leisure style that Jim has a hard time comprehending.  He has a hard time sitting still.

 He passed a lot of interesting buildings and other sights on his very indirect journey back to the hotel.

The playground was filled with English speaking children.  Some are part of the ex-pat community here, but most private nursery schools teach English to their students.  The 5 countries we visited have 5 very distinct languages, so most people use either English or Russian for cross-border communication.

Jim found the restaurant he had hoped to eat in.  It looked interesting, but alas, we found too many other interesting places.

Another place had a fire hydrant in the middle of tables.  What would happen if there were a nearby fire?

 Jim passed perhaps a hundred people carrying bouquets of flowers.  He wondered if there was a flower market nearby, thinking he might buy some to cheer Ardith, but people were coming an going in all directions.  He finally figured out what was going on and the clerk in the hotel confirmed it:  the various colleges of the University were having graduations each day this week and giving flowers to both guys and gals is the tradition here.

Jim went back to see how Ardith was doing and to drop off brochures he had picked up in the tourist office.  She still wasn't doing well.  She sent him back out to play.  During his money changer quest, he had seen the remains of the Upper Castle and wanted to climb the hill.

There is a Moderately sloping spiral path up the hill that is largely paved with cobblestones.  Jim was walking faster that some young people going up at the same time, but they got to the top first because he kept stopping to take pictures.

He first ended up by the Castle Keep building.  He eventually figured out that he probably wasn't supposed to be there when he came to a fence separating him from the tower.  Instead of going up the nice wide path, he had chosen to take a small path through a partly open gate.

 Next it was to the tower - the place he was supposed to go.  Walking up to the tower is free, taking a lift there isn't.  At the level of the tower base, the view is great, so Jim briefly pondered not paying to go in the tower.

The tower itself houses a museum.  There were models showing how the castles and other fortification were set up 600 years ago.  There were also displays of armor and a few other nick-knacks on the first 2 floors.  Jim was initially disappointed. Taking the very narrow spiral stairs to the 3rd floor brought him to a place with a TV showing scenes of airplanes flying. politicians making speeches, and people holding hands. He didn't get it, until he read the text accompanying the stills taken from the video.These were about The Baltic Way, a massive demonstration on the 50th anniversary of the Soviet takeover of the Baltic States.  More than 2 million people form a human chain starting in Vilnius, passing through Riga and ending in Tallinn.  6 months later, Lithuania became the first of the Baltic States to assert their independence.

 From the top, there was a good view of the Neris river and some of the newer parts of the city.

Jim took a steeper path down the hill, one that led away from the main part of town.  In his wanderings, he came across a woman doing heavy-duty makeup work on another who was sitting in the back of a vehicle.  The closest building to them was part of the Cultural Ministry, so he started speculating on why this was happening: was their a show about to happen, was she applying for a job, meeting a special guy?

He got back in the early afternoon and asked Ardith if there was anything I could get that would make her feel better.  She said no to various ways of asking, then finally said that I could get her ice cream from the shop that was just by the entrance to our courtyard.  She loved the wild berry flavor I got her, and got the same flavor each of the next 3 days.

Since Ardith still wasn't well, Jim decided that he would do another thing that Ardith wouldn't especially enjoy.  He went to the Energy and Technology Museum, which was open later on Thursdays than other days.  It wasn't listed in our guidebook, but was in one of the brochures Jim had picked up.  The museum is housed in the city's first power plant, built in 1903.  Much of the equipment remains and dates from then or the 1930s when a major upgrade was done.

 

In addition to being able to wander through the fascinating maze of pipes, valves, wires and controls, there were several other interesting things in the museum.  Unfortunately, the memory card on Jim's computer got corrupted and over a hundred pictures were lost, many of this museum.  There was a very large room filled with old cars and motorcycles, many of which Jim had never seen before or in many cases, heard of.  There was a  large section on various industries that had been in the town and how technological innovation had happened there, despite Soviet suppression of many ideas.  The earliest was of shoe making and how technology changed that practice and the society associated with it.  There were lots of radios, tape recorders, TVs, etc.

Jim was especially interested in the early computer technology.  Some was cloned from IBM and other western sources, but there was some genuine innovation in things like printers and card punches.

 Jim got a free glass of wine with his $3 admission to the museum.  He had stumbled on the grand opening of a new exhibit commemorating 120 years since the first horse-drawn trams were used in Vilnius.  The main part of the exhibit was a series of old postcards showing the evolution of the trams.  There was also a display of plans for a large-scale modernization of the city's tram system.

 Ardith was feeling well enough to go out and take a long-ish walk to dinner. Jim had seen a nice place along the Vilna river and thought it would be just what Ardith would like.  We were very lucky.  Just as we entered the restaurant, one of the riverfront tables opened up.  At the table next to us were probably 2 families that had recent university graduates, complete with flowers and diplomas. We had a great meal and got to watch a lot of kayakers navigate a trick section of the river. About a third of them mildly bumped into the wall. 

When we returned to our hotel it was close to 10PM.  Jim had walked between 14 and 17 miles today and enjoyed it immensely. There was a big crowd on the sidewalk and we had thoughts of evacuations of other strange things.  It was intermission at the Philharmonic which is one building way from us.

In Maryland writing about Latvia and Lithuania

Wednesday, June 19

After breakfast, Jim went out into town to change our remaining Latvian money for some Lithuanian money. He passed 6 money changers before he found one that was open.  Changing money was mainly an excuse for him to take another walk in Riga, especially to capture some more sounds. Our first evening in town, we walked by an audible traffic light, designed for visually impaired to know when to cross the street.  He had recorded a similar one in Helsinki, but this was more musical.  Ardith was quite hungry then, so he didn’t take the time to record it.  Yesterday we passed what Jim thought was the same intersection on our way back from the Art Deco district.  He went a few blocks in either direction while Ardith sat on a park bench.  No success.  This morning, he found it at the same place he first tried and captured its sound.

He went back to the spot near the train and bus stations where several tram tracks come together, just because he enjoys transportation stuff.

While there he heard interesting sounds coming from the pedestrian underpass and went down to record the sax player.  He liked the blurry image he captured from the video used to capture audio – did you catch that?

The wheel chair ramp here is just a slight improvement over the ones he’s seen in other countries.  Still quite a challenge.

When he came back, we checked the map in our tour book to find out how far our hotel in Vilnius is from its bus terminal. It looks like it will be an easy walk so we won't need a taxi.

After packing up and checking out of our Riga hotel, we walked to the bus terminal. It was a very quick walk, and we certainly did not need a taxi for this 5-10 minute walk. The weather is beautiful and we are looking forward to a pleasant bus ride.

The bus process is very easy. We went onto the Internet several days ago and made reservations on the Lux Express line. We also got a 10% discount because we are "pensioners".  The company sends an email confirming your ticket, assigning a seat number, and identifying the platform number where the bus will be loading.  

The bus loads about 15 minutes before departure. The driver loads the luggage in the lower compartment and another employee checks your passport and reminds you of your seat assignment. A very efficient process and everything has gone smoothly on both of our long distance bus rides on this trip.

Leaving Riga, we saw a variety of buildings, both splendid and ordinary.

The trip through Latvia and into Lithuania went through beautiful countryside.

As we approached Vilnius we saw lots of high rise apartments and offices, and many buildings under construction.

We arrived at the bus terminal and Ardith stayed with the luggage while Jim went looking for the way to our hotel.  The first picture Jim took after exiting the bus was of a recycling center.  We have seen no evidence of recycling in our previous 4 countries.  When Ardith talked to Sergey’s daughter, Anastasia, about this she seemed almost confused by the concept.  Recycling here is about where things were in our area 25 years ago, but it is a start.  We have enjoyed curbside pickup for many years.

Most of the trek to the hotel was downhill.  We had a few “map stops” to verify direction, but finally found our hotel. The Grybas Family Hotel is a lovely building tucked into a quiet courtyard, where the street noises hardly enter.  Ardith zeroed in on this choice because her maiden name is Zybas and thus felt a connection.  There were actually 3 different names on the place.  The entrance to the courtyard had prominent signs for the Unicef office tucked in the entrance.  We had to look hard to make sure it was the right hotel.  It is surrounded by trees, a garden and a fountain. 

We were warmly greeted and sent to our lovely room, which is more like an apartment than just a room.  It has a sitting area with couch, chairs and coffee table; a large bedroom with huge windows overlooking the courtyard; and a bathroom that is as large as our entire hotel room in Riga, with deep soaking tub.

The only disadvantage to the hotel is that you need to climb stairs with narrow risers - no elevators.

After a few minutes to relax and change into short sleeves because it is hot, we wandered out to find an eating place.  Jim had found a writeup about an interesting restaurant called Rene, named after the surrealist artist René Magritte, one of his favorites.  We changed our plans when we realized how lovely it was outside, and decided to eat outdoors. 

There are many outdoor eating places that are out on the sidewalks or tucked into courtyards throughout the old town.  We spotted one that had a lovely garden and 4 of its 6 tables open.  Shortly after we sat down, the rest of the tables filled up.  People were regularly coming in from the street hoping for an open table, then leaving.  Many of the locals seem to just stop in the have a beer and an appetizer, sitting for a long time with no one seeming to be concerned about taking a table for an extended period of time.  Our dinner time on this trip often turned into as much as 2 hours.  It was quite fun to enjoy such leisurely meals.

Jim had spicy Cornish game hen, roasted potatoes and salad.  He also had mead, which is a honey drink, a big deal in medieval times, and still locally brewed.  This restaurant had 4 varieties in its menu.  It was delicious.  Ardith had grilled lamb chops in a dark sauce, roasted potatoes and roasted vegetables.  Ardith had an unknown pie for dessert, that had a crumbly topping and whipped cream on it.  The waiter said it was “court” pie.  We realized after seeing a menu item a different night, that he probably said “curd”.  Jim had a mixture of crumbled cookies, berries and whipped cream.  Most days we have been eating only two meals – breakfast and dinner.  That seems to be enough food to keep us going.  

Most European and Canadian credit cards have chips in them with associated PINs.  If you have one of these, you are required to enter your PIN, so machines are brought to your table in restaurants.  US credit cards are not as safe.

When we exited the courtyard, Ardith looked up and saw lots of hot air balloons passing above.  There are scheduled flights twice a day.

We took a leisurely walk back to the hotel, passing some lovely old buildings, a playground still filled with children at 9pm,  and lots of very stylish people enjoying the wonderful evening weather.

 

We have been in the capitals of 4 countries, so it has been quite common to see embassies on our walks. The French embassy here fits quite well with the neighborhood, with muted versions of their Red, White and Blue.

 Our guidebook says that there are 40 churches open to the public and probably lots more that aren't.  They seem to pop up everywhere you look.

There was a wonderful sculpture on the wall of one of the many Orthodox churches.

 

The fountains were occupied by children and adults enjoying themselves.