LITHUANIA
The first of the three Baltic republics to start from the south, I arrived there by night bus from Gdansk, cost 45 euros, departure at 7pm and arrival at 7am local time (one hour more than in Poland).
VILNIUS is a beautiful city with Baroque style buildings and is protected by UNESCO.
The historic center runs lengthways starting from the Aurora gate. It is a city full of churches, one every 100 metres, despite the pagan origins of the town, which came to Catholicism under compulsion by the Teutonic order based in the famous Malbork or Marienburg castle, near Gdansk.
Immediately above the Aurora Gate there is a chapel with the image of the Black Madonna which attracts thousands of Catholic pilgrims from all over Europe, led by the Poles.
Lithuania and Poland were a united country in the Middle Ages and one of the largest on the continent which reached as far as the Black Sea.
Then the Swedes, Germans and Russians erased that powerful state which disappeared from the maps only to reappear at the end of the First World War and last until the beginning of the Second when before The Nazis and then the Russians occupied the country again, inflicting immeasurable human losses, especially among the Jewish community but also among the Lithuanian ruling class who were deported en masse to the gulags of Siberia.
Today, despite the influx of Polish workers they find in Lithuania better salaries and job opportunities, the massive exodus of Lithuanians towards English-speaking countries, the United States, Ireland and the United Kingdom continues.
Lithuanians are the nicest of the Baltic peoples, with... .Italian and Catholic unlike the more serious and closed Latvian and Estonian Protestants.
The Lithuanian specialty is cepelinai, tasty potato dumplings filled with meat and seasoned with oil and bacon. There are also blynelai, koldunai and others, in short ravioli, cannelloni and pancakes with meat, mushrooms or various vegetables, all delicious which are added to the pork, the excellent sausages, the potatoes and the fresh and pickled capuccio, in short the sauerkraut which goes well with the excellent local beers.
Vilnius also has a non-conformist district, the republic of Uzumis founded by alternative, original artists who beyond the local river, past a bridge with many padlocks on the barriers, includes interesting places, but less than what can be expected from an initiative which in my opinion is in decline compared to its glorious beginning. Instead, a nice surprise in this beautiful but sleepy city was the meeting in the city park of BALTICA, a festival of folk dances and songs that takes place every 4 years in the various republics and which attracts groups from the same ones, but also from abroad. In fact, it was pleasant to meet the Italian group from Lodi, LA TERRA DEL SOLE which has had great success among the Lithuanian public as it performs cheerful Sicilian ballads (choreographies and members are mostly originally from Agrigento), fun songs that cheer you up after beautiful but sad performances by local groups who often recall the events of the war and the exodus.
Beautiful costumes and excellent music accompanied by stalls selling local handicraft products including amber articles which overflows throughout the area starting from Poland, then the linen fabrics, the wooden sculptures, but above all the culinary specialties with the excellent soups, sausages and beers, including the Giro, a less harsh dark beer made from bread and cereals and alcoholic than that of barley.
Vilnius presents the Gediminas hill only 50 meters high with walls, a museum tower, the remains of the upper castle which can be reached after a short climb from the park below or in a short funicular ride starting next to the art museum.
Below the imposing white cathedral, the recently restored royal palace and the black statue of Gediminas on horseback, the local hero, the Grand Duke of Lithuania who he founded the city in 1320 to which Gedimino Prospektas is also dedicated, the main street of the modern city adjacent to the historic center with elegant buildings such as that of the dramatic art theater with the impressive black heads of the three muses and beautiful green parks There are modern and futuristic skyscrapers and the television tower which reaches a height of 326 meters and which became a symbol of freedom and heroism when 12 Lithuanians sacrificed themselves to the Russian forces who in 1991 attacked the television station to repress the independence movements.
Vilnius has the oldest university in northern Europe, dating back to 1579 and which has 13 courtyards among the various buildings that house it.
Vilnius was the European capital of culture in 2009 demonstration of the value of this city of around 600,000 inhabitants.
The old capital was in TRAKAI which can be reached by train or bus in a couple of hours and which has a beautiful castle fortress inside an island surrounded by calm waters of a wonderful lake and a very suggestive green landscape.
It is an excursion that is worth it because the place is very beautiful even if the reconstructed castle is not extremely interesting for the internal rooms and for what it exhibits given that they are articles recovered here and there.
From Vilnius I took the modern and comfortable but slow train and reached the coastal city and port of the country KLAIPEDA, the Prussian Memel, the easternmost city of the old German state.
The city it is not particularly beautiful and interesting except for a square with a classical theatre, some low buildings on the opposite side and stalls selling the usual amber, a canal with bars and restaurants where you can eat grilled salmon, a tall and ancient building, the old mill transformed into a hotel.
The city is very large and green because the houses are built leaving large green spaces, avenues with comfortable sidewalks and cycle paths which make the environment relaxing and not oppressive and concreted like here.
/>The canal that separates it from the opposite peninsula forms the docks of the port with enormous cranes and factories for storage and shipbuilding.
The beaches are free, but divided between beaches for families, for single women and for nudists and equipped with changing rooms made up of open circular metal structures that hide only the central part of the body and covered with advertising.
Little equipment, a few bars at the ferry arrival and another on the beach, given that you are inside a protected national park.
The ferry takes only 15 minutes to reach the opposite peninsula, the beautiful CURLAND and NERINGIA which is about 100 km long and only 4 wide, half belonging to Lithuania and the other half to the Russian district of Kaliningrad, the old Prussian Konigsberg which can be reached from this road.
The peninsula forms an internal lagoon with the Nemunas river whose delta flows into the interior and which is usually visited by boat due to its beauty and peculiarity of the green landscape.
Much more interesting is the peninsula which enjoys a unique peculiarity in the world: the presence of sand dunes which in various points reach a height of 60 meters and which are protected in the national park made up of extensive pine forests , a very long beach towards the outer part of the Baltic which is the joy of swimmers and naturists, a cycle path separated from the road which leads many to rent bicycles and the crossing of the peninsula with stops to visit the dunes, refresh themselves with an invigorating bath in the not so cold waters (about 22 degrees) of the Baltic or stopping in the 4 remaining villages (others have been abandoned because they are submerged by sand) and above all in the beautiful NIDA, just 3 km from the Russian border.
NIDA is quite expensive , but it is worth spending a little more to enjoy this paradise which allows you to visit the nearby park with dunes over 50 meters high, a walk among the greenery along the coastal path with wooden stairs that allow you to reach the top and enjoy the surrounding landscape with the pine forest lost the sea and the beach which can be reached after a walk of a couple of km along and through the pine forest. There are beautiful colored wooden houses, with well-kept gardens, very high poles with wrought iron weathervanes that characterize the various homes, beautiful well-kept parks, hotels of international standard and even the villa where the famous German writer Thomas Mann spent 4 summers in company of the large family and which has now been transformed into a museum.
The last visit to the town is to the coastal town of PALANGA, the Lithuanian Rimini which attracts bathers from all over the country and also from abroad with its beautiful and long beach and the very famous central pedestrian street, a couple of km long that reaches the wooden pier which continues its run into the sea, dividing the beautiful beach in half.
In the evening there are thousands of young people and tourists who they liven up the place by walking and entertaining in the numerous bars and restaurants, a large amusement park and many attractions typical of prestigious and attractive seaside resorts.
In short, a beautiful country of which I have seen the essential things, neglecting the two national parks of Zematija behind Klaipeda and Ausksitalija towards the border with Belarus because the whole country is a national park being very green.
I also preferred to see the coast and skip the internal Hill of Crosses towards Siaulai which displays thousands of wooden crosses of every shape and size that Lithuanians plant as a vote, as a thank you, as a remembrance, as a protest to the point that in the past it represented their aversion to the foreign occupiers, first German and then Russian until independence in 1991.
รน
VILNIUS is a beautiful city with Baroque style buildings and is protected by UNESCO.
The historic center runs lengthways starting from the Aurora gate. It is a city full of churches, one every 100 metres, despite the pagan origins of the town, which came to Catholicism under compulsion by the Teutonic order based in the famous Malbork or Marienburg castle, near Gdansk.
Immediately above the Aurora Gate there is a chapel with the image of the Black Madonna which attracts thousands of Catholic pilgrims from all over Europe, led by the Poles.
Lithuania and Poland were a united country in the Middle Ages and one of the largest on the continent which reached as far as the Black Sea.
Then the Swedes, Germans and Russians erased that powerful state which disappeared from the maps only to reappear at the end of the First World War and last until the beginning of the Second when before The Nazis and then the Russians occupied the country again, inflicting immeasurable human losses, especially among the Jewish community but also among the Lithuanian ruling class who were deported en masse to the gulags of Siberia.
Today, despite the influx of Polish workers they find in Lithuania better salaries and job opportunities, the massive exodus of Lithuanians towards English-speaking countries, the United States, Ireland and the United Kingdom continues.
Lithuanians are the nicest of the Baltic peoples, with... .Italian and Catholic unlike the more serious and closed Latvian and Estonian Protestants.
The Lithuanian specialty is cepelinai, tasty potato dumplings filled with meat and seasoned with oil and bacon. There are also blynelai, koldunai and others, in short ravioli, cannelloni and pancakes with meat, mushrooms or various vegetables, all delicious which are added to the pork, the excellent sausages, the potatoes and the fresh and pickled capuccio, in short the sauerkraut which goes well with the excellent local beers.
Vilnius also has a non-conformist district, the republic of Uzumis founded by alternative, original artists who beyond the local river, past a bridge with many padlocks on the barriers, includes interesting places, but less than what can be expected from an initiative which in my opinion is in decline compared to its glorious beginning. Instead, a nice surprise in this beautiful but sleepy city was the meeting in the city park of BALTICA, a festival of folk dances and songs that takes place every 4 years in the various republics and which attracts groups from the same ones, but also from abroad. In fact, it was pleasant to meet the Italian group from Lodi, LA TERRA DEL SOLE which has had great success among the Lithuanian public as it performs cheerful Sicilian ballads (choreographies and members are mostly originally from Agrigento), fun songs that cheer you up after beautiful but sad performances by local groups who often recall the events of the war and the exodus.
Beautiful costumes and excellent music accompanied by stalls selling local handicraft products including amber articles which overflows throughout the area starting from Poland, then the linen fabrics, the wooden sculptures, but above all the culinary specialties with the excellent soups, sausages and beers, including the Giro, a less harsh dark beer made from bread and cereals and alcoholic than that of barley.
Vilnius presents the Gediminas hill only 50 meters high with walls, a museum tower, the remains of the upper castle which can be reached after a short climb from the park below or in a short funicular ride starting next to the art museum.
Below the imposing white cathedral, the recently restored royal palace and the black statue of Gediminas on horseback, the local hero, the Grand Duke of Lithuania who he founded the city in 1320 to which Gedimino Prospektas is also dedicated, the main street of the modern city adjacent to the historic center with elegant buildings such as that of the dramatic art theater with the impressive black heads of the three muses and beautiful green parks There are modern and futuristic skyscrapers and the television tower which reaches a height of 326 meters and which became a symbol of freedom and heroism when 12 Lithuanians sacrificed themselves to the Russian forces who in 1991 attacked the television station to repress the independence movements.
Vilnius has the oldest university in northern Europe, dating back to 1579 and which has 13 courtyards among the various buildings that house it.
Vilnius was the European capital of culture in 2009 demonstration of the value of this city of around 600,000 inhabitants.
The old capital was in TRAKAI which can be reached by train or bus in a couple of hours and which has a beautiful castle fortress inside an island surrounded by calm waters of a wonderful lake and a very suggestive green landscape.
It is an excursion that is worth it because the place is very beautiful even if the reconstructed castle is not extremely interesting for the internal rooms and for what it exhibits given that they are articles recovered here and there.
From Vilnius I took the modern and comfortable but slow train and reached the coastal city and port of the country KLAIPEDA, the Prussian Memel, the easternmost city of the old German state.
The city it is not particularly beautiful and interesting except for a square with a classical theatre, some low buildings on the opposite side and stalls selling the usual amber, a canal with bars and restaurants where you can eat grilled salmon, a tall and ancient building, the old mill transformed into a hotel.
The city is very large and green because the houses are built leaving large green spaces, avenues with comfortable sidewalks and cycle paths which make the environment relaxing and not oppressive and concreted like here.
/>The canal that separates it from the opposite peninsula forms the docks of the port with enormous cranes and factories for storage and shipbuilding.
The beaches are free, but divided between beaches for families, for single women and for nudists and equipped with changing rooms made up of open circular metal structures that hide only the central part of the body and covered with advertising.
Little equipment, a few bars at the ferry arrival and another on the beach, given that you are inside a protected national park.
The ferry takes only 15 minutes to reach the opposite peninsula, the beautiful CURLAND and NERINGIA which is about 100 km long and only 4 wide, half belonging to Lithuania and the other half to the Russian district of Kaliningrad, the old Prussian Konigsberg which can be reached from this road.
The peninsula forms an internal lagoon with the Nemunas river whose delta flows into the interior and which is usually visited by boat due to its beauty and peculiarity of the green landscape.
Much more interesting is the peninsula which enjoys a unique peculiarity in the world: the presence of sand dunes which in various points reach a height of 60 meters and which are protected in the national park made up of extensive pine forests , a very long beach towards the outer part of the Baltic which is the joy of swimmers and naturists, a cycle path separated from the road which leads many to rent bicycles and the crossing of the peninsula with stops to visit the dunes, refresh themselves with an invigorating bath in the not so cold waters (about 22 degrees) of the Baltic or stopping in the 4 remaining villages (others have been abandoned because they are submerged by sand) and above all in the beautiful NIDA, just 3 km from the Russian border.
NIDA is quite expensive , but it is worth spending a little more to enjoy this paradise which allows you to visit the nearby park with dunes over 50 meters high, a walk among the greenery along the coastal path with wooden stairs that allow you to reach the top and enjoy the surrounding landscape with the pine forest lost the sea and the beach which can be reached after a walk of a couple of km along and through the pine forest. There are beautiful colored wooden houses, with well-kept gardens, very high poles with wrought iron weathervanes that characterize the various homes, beautiful well-kept parks, hotels of international standard and even the villa where the famous German writer Thomas Mann spent 4 summers in company of the large family and which has now been transformed into a museum.
The last visit to the town is to the coastal town of PALANGA, the Lithuanian Rimini which attracts bathers from all over the country and also from abroad with its beautiful and long beach and the very famous central pedestrian street, a couple of km long that reaches the wooden pier which continues its run into the sea, dividing the beautiful beach in half.
In the evening there are thousands of young people and tourists who they liven up the place by walking and entertaining in the numerous bars and restaurants, a large amusement park and many attractions typical of prestigious and attractive seaside resorts.
In short, a beautiful country of which I have seen the essential things, neglecting the two national parks of Zematija behind Klaipeda and Ausksitalija towards the border with Belarus because the whole country is a national park being very green.
I also preferred to see the coast and skip the internal Hill of Crosses towards Siaulai which displays thousands of wooden crosses of every shape and size that Lithuanians plant as a vote, as a thank you, as a remembrance, as a protest to the point that in the past it represented their aversion to the foreign occupiers, first German and then Russian until independence in 1991.
รน
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