As many of you know I travel a lot with my Blog wifey, Boo. We have visited several places together and I hope we will have even more to experience in coming years.
This time we decided on Lithuania; Vilnius to be exact and booked a stunning hotel, The Amberton Cathedral Square for five nights starting on Thursday 26th September.
The journey started off well. My train to Luton was a doddle and I arrived around an hour before Boo. No worries though because I had a fully charged phone, a book on the go and a few playlists of songs to work my way through. Perfect!
Off to the Airport
Boo eventually arrived and we had a bit of a natter. I had to admit I was struggling with my knee and ankle quite a lot. We decided it may be prudent to ask for some extra assistance with our check in. Well, what an adventure that was!
I was put on a huge wheelchair and a lovely young lady wheeled us down to security. We went straight through all the queues and got scanned there and then. Our bags were put through the machines and Boos turned up pretty quickly.
Mine didn’t.
Fifteen minutes had passed and still mine was nowhere to be seen. In fact, it had gone through the machines several times over and as no-one had claimed it, they kept putting it back through!
Eventually we were reunited and wheeled along to the departure lounge. However we didn’t have to go and wait with everyone. We were whisked along to a huge box on wheels along with another lady. We sat in the box for a little while before it moved right up to the back of the airplane.
In the Thunderlift!
Suddenly it started to rise up until it was level with the back doors of the plane. It got even funnier when we arrived at the back and our driver literally knocked on the door to ask to be let in!
Off to knock on the door!
It was a packed plane and as it was a later flight there was a few rowdy people on the plane. Hopefully they would quieten down as the flight went on.
Sadly not. The rowdiness got worse and worse. The language was shocking; the C word was thrown around between rows as the party wasn’t all sat together.
A paper plane landed on my chest, thrown from an idiot behind me. The noise level was awful but we just put our earphones in and tried to ignore the noise.
Karma was to rear its head however.
Landing in Vilnius we were waiting for the ‘Thunderlift’ as we now know it to be called to arrive. This meant we saw the whole saga when one of the party realised his passport was missing.
Totally and utterly missing.
Ahh what a terrible shame!
We sat and watched as the cabin crew ripped apart the plane looking for the missing passport. It literally was no-where to be found. Chairs were taken apart, floors, baggage areas all searched and the passport was literally not on board.
Of course, all his mates had left him to his fate.
Lithuanian Thunderlift
Our Thunderlift arrived and we got on it.
Getting escorted through passport control and security we came across one of the party who was holding his mates passport. He had ‘allegedly’ forgot he had it and wanted to get back to the plane, which simply wasn’t allowed. Nor was the friend allowed onto the ground without it.
Sounded a whole lot like a practical joke gone wrong!
Either way, we were escorted through the airport in quick time, got our cases and headed for the taxi rank. We were deposited at our hotel in short time and checked in very quickly.
We had to admit, the hotel was absolutely stunning; A central glass vestibule with the rooms laid out on all sides. Our room was on the first floor looking out over the reception area. Perfect!
Stunning Glass Atrium
Getting into our room it was almost tropical in heat. The radiator was pumping out heat so we soon switched that off and put the air conditioning on full.
Well those beds were getting separated!
We were fortunate to have a full length door with a teeny tiny balcony (a shelf really) and when we opened it and saw the view…. Just perfect!
From our ‘balcony’
Or so we thought.
What we didn’t know was that the Bell Tower of the Cathedral chimed. A lot.
One ding on the quarter hour, two at half past, three at quarter to the hour. Four dings on the hour PLUS the correct amount of dongs for the actual time.
Midnight came and we were treated to four dings and twelve dongs. And this goes on through out the WHOLE night and day.
Combine this with the sheer noise volume from the open atrium and non-soundproofed rooms and it made for a very noisy turbulent night. Put it this way, we got virtually no sleep whatsoever.
First look at the Cathedral in daylight
Waking up on Friday we literally looked like something from night of the living dead. Oh well, we put on our big girl pants and made a start to the day.
Going to the hotel restaurant for the first day seemed wise, so we paid for our breakfast and went to see what was on offer. Again I made out OK as I pretty much each anything, however Boo had very little choice and we decided that we would source our food from elsewhere in future.
Uber Selfie
Heading for the Town Hall, we had a walking tour of Vilnius scheduled at 1200. I didn’t know just how far I would be able to walk, so we had already discussed me finishing and sitting in a cafe once I had walked far enough. The tour was 2.5 hours long so I knew I would find it a bit difficult.
The Town Hall
We were shown around by the lovely Ieva who was so friendly and knowledgeable about the City. She told us a lot of the history of the area, including Soviet rule, Nazi takeovers and even further back to the middle ages.
Showing us down back streets, little courtyards and treats off the beaten track, it really was a great tour.
Ieva telling us all about her beautiful City
Eventually we hit Uzupis; a self proclaimed Republic which housed the original Bohemians and artists. Now an area of beauty, art, sculpture, restaurants and more it really is a place not to be missed.
Uzupis. A perfect place
Talking to our guide she advised that you can become an ambassador for the Republic and she was in fact The Ambassador for Tall Women as she was over 6ft tall.
All you need is Love………..
Wandering around the area there were so many different art installations to see; books attached to trees, metal mermaids, crochet-work, Tibetan flags and even old pianos that are going back to nature. One part that you shouldn’t miss is the two marble statues of naked ladies. It is said to be good luck to tweak or rub their nipples.
The Mermaid of Uzupis
Well, it would be stupid not to give it a go, surely!
Tweaking
Eventually it was time to move on but my knee was starting to protest. I knew there was about an hour left to walk and I didn’t think I had five minutes left in me. I made the decision to sit in a riverside bar in Uzupis and Boo carried on without me.
Cheers!
The sun was shining as I sat under a shady tree, ordered a beer and watched the river flow and people pass by. Feeling a leaf fall onto my hair, I brushed it off. Except it was no leaf, but an unhappy wasp. I have to admit I was pretty unhappy with the sting it gave me on my hand too!
Ouch!
I grabbed an Uber back to the hotel to meet Boo and we had a bit of a chill out in the room before getting ready to go out for dinner. Boo had found a traditional Lithuanian restaurant not too far from the hotel and as you were able to borrow an electric scooter for free, It would be silly not to give it a go.
Boo wasn’t so keen so I went off on one myself. It was pretty good fun and could go as slow or fast as you wanted. We travelled up Pilies Street where we knew there were some souvenir shops as well as the restaurant we wanted; Etno Dvaras.
Heading inside we were seated very quickly and a large menu brought to us. Boo is a vegetarian so it can sometimes be tricky to find things for her, however we were assured that there is a large menu featuring potatoes. How wrong could that go?
We started with a bowl of Cold beetroot soup. It was served with 4 roast potatoes. A bit weird but the taste was stunning. You just had to ignore the putrid pink colour!
Weird yet Wonderful
I ordered Pork Hock that came with mashed potato, sauerkraut, pickles and a horseradish sauce. It was massive and absolutely bloody lovely.
Pork Hock, Mashed Potato, Sauerkraut and Horseradish sauce.
Boo ordered Potato dumplings which are a Lithuanian specialty. Mostly people eat them stuffed with meat, however the vegetarian option was stuffed with curd cheese. Simple and nothing to worry about, right?
Potato Dumplings
Wrong.
Boo started in on this huge gelatinous ball of potato. It had a strange look to it and an even more unusual texture. The potato was very starchy and thick. It had the consistency of extremely thick wallpaper paste and pretty much tasted like it too. Boo let me have a try and I have to admit it was absolutely awful.
Inside the Dumpling
I could see how if the potato was wrapped around and flavoured meat it may be quite nice, however with the tasteless curd cheese and potato it really wasn’t very nice at all. Definitely an acquired taste!
Absolutely Delicious!
We left the restaurant and I scooted back to the hotel to drop off the electric scooter and met back up with Boo. We took a load of photos in the vicinity and then headed for a walk up the main street, Gedemino pr. just to see what was going on.
Scooters everywhere!
It was pretty packed and soon we came across a good old Lidl; perfect to get some bits for breakfast from. In the basket went muffins, pain au chocolate and some peanuts. Perfect for snacking on.
Wandering around the City we managed to take a lot of photos of the surroundings. Beautiful building, churches, monuments and statues. There was simply so much to see and preserve in photographs.
Just sublime
Although it wasn’t too late, we had done an awful lot in not much time and due to the lack of sleep were running on fumes.
Night Photos
Heading back to the hotel we stopped at reception to ask if they had some earplugs and to our delight they did.
The Hill of Three Crosses
Getting a pair each we went back to our room to see if we could get more sleep than what we had on arrival…
Beautiful yet Noisy!!!
Watch this space to see how day two went.
Till next time,
SPSG xxx