Sveiki, Lietuva

Hello, Lithuania! I’ve begun the Baltics portion of my trip with a 3-night stay in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. And it has been an adjustment, to say the least – no gelato, 25 degrees colder than Malta, and less English than the previous 5 weeks of my travels. There’s a coldsnap covering most of Europe, which I normally wouldn’t be bothered by but is not really what I planned for packing-wise; needless to say, I have been COLD the last couple days. And I’ve been without my gelato, so I’m going through withdrawal there.

Lithuania is a small country of about 2.8 million people, and Vilnius is in the southeastern part of the country, right near the border of Belarus. It has spent nearly 170 of the last 225 years under forced Russian rule. In 1990, it was the first Baltic state to declare its independence from the Soviet Union, a year before the USSR officially dissolved. During WWII, Lithuania was occupied first by the Soviets, then by the Nazis, before landing back with the Soviets following the end of the war. Prior to the war, Vilnius was known as the Jerusalem of the North; nearly 95% of the Jewish population was killed by December 1941.

I had 2+ days to explore Vilnius, and I think that was probably a little more than you need to see the city. It’s pretty small, and there aren’t a ton of sights; there are some additional interesting things to see in other parts of the country, some of which I’ll see as part of my transfer tour tomorrow between Vilnius and Riga, Latvia, my next stop. The coastal area by the Baltic Sea is supposed to be really nice, but I will not make it over there, unfortunately. And it’s pretty cold so I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the water anyway.

I arrived Sunday afternoon after a pretty smooth flight from Malta, and it was an easy taxi ride to my hotel. The hotel itself is pretty nice and well-located. I booked it so long ago and had so many other travel plans in my head, I kind of forgot the details of it until I arrived and got to pat myself on the back for a good choice. It comes with breakfast, and I discovered PEACH HALVES (!!!) this morning (not yesterday, sadly) so I’m a happy camper.

As I said, there aren’t too many sights here, and the main souvenir is amber, which I dislike quite a lot so has been good for my shopping budget (haha, blew through that like 4 weeks ago). So it has been a low-key couple of days, which is nice because I’m old and tired and my feet hurt. Still managed to get 17k steps in yesterday though because, in addition to being old and tired, I’m also dumb and don’t know how to slow down, and too cheap for taxis.

The best part of my Vilnius visit was the hot air balloon ride I took Sunday night. I have never been ballooning before, and IT. WAS. AWESOME. Lithuania actually has more hot air balloons per capita than any other country – it’s A Thing here. Due to the weather/wind, we couldn’t fly over Vilnius as originally planned, so we were flying over the town of Trakai, about 25km outside of Vilnius. I was initially bummed not to fly over the city, but the countryside was so beautiful that I’m happy to have seen it rather than the tops of buildings. Lithuania is really green and foresty so it was nice to see that part of the nation, since it seems like it’s more about country-life than city-life in Lithuania. Ballooning is really quiet and peaceful, and you see a view that most people don’t get. I thought I would be freaked out by the heights, as I’m not a fan of them, but I wasn’t afraid at all. My only fear was accidentally dropping my phone over the side, but happily, that did not happen. The hour-long flight went really quickly and now I want to hot air balloon everywhere I can!

Overall, Vilnius was nice but I can’t really see myself coming back any time soon. I think I’ll enjoy the drive through the countryside and some of the stops my tour will make tomorrow on the way to Riga, but I kind of think I’ll have seen everything I want to see. The people are nice, and pretty friendly once they open up, but they tend to be reserved overall. Most speak some degree of English, too, so that’s really helpful. There’s a big tech industry here, and I think that’s helped make English more common.

Gelato Update: 89 scoops
lemon – 14, mango – 1, strawberry – 2, caramel cream – 7, dark chocolate – 21, chocolate – 11, chocolate chip – 1; cherry – 6; rum – 1; cookie – 1; chocolate mousse – 1; raspberry – 17; vanilla – 1; mixed berry – 1; Oreo – 1; caramel with pecans – 1; blueberry cheesecake – 2

I ended up getting one last cone Saturday night in Malta, because of course I did. I did find some ice cream here in Vilnius that might’ve been gelato, but it’s been too damn cold to have much beyond one scoop of strawberry (it definitely wasn’t gelato at this place so it’s not in the tally). I think this might be my final numbers. 🙁