Unspoilt Lithuania
For our 5th anniversary celebrations, we stayed in the capital Vilnius but also travelled out to Kaunas in this tiny but proud little country of 3 million.
Observations
- I have never known a place with predominately female bus drivers. We didn't go n any buses but noticed them driving about. Vilnius also provided my first female Uber driver for our return trip to the airport. This lady confessed to 'no English' but communicated with us perfectly. It was the first time someone had said that during the trip and of course everyone seemed to speak perfect English no doublet along with 2-3 other languages.
- This is amber country, the shiny orange fossil or Baltic gold.
- For the first time anywhere, I had perfect WiFi on a (€1) train ride. Next day we took the first class option with no WiFi but perhaps it was just an older train.
- Our hotel TV wasn't showing any Olympics, so we just saw a bit of the opening ceremony at 2am after arriving eight hours late (ask Brussels Airlines) to start our trip. I did keep landing on the Russian channel with its seeming biased news as this was when the Paralympics OlympicCommittee banned them from their games. We noticed the bars were showing when Lithuania played Brazil in the basketball though.
- I mention this almost everywhere I go but both cities we visited were clean. There seems to be a level of pride in other countries either by simply putting their trash in the bin or the councils doing what they should be doing. Always puts the UK to shame.
- We unknowingly stayed in the oldest hotel in the city.
- All the music played in public places seemed to be cover versions.
- Lithuania is geared up for tourists and we noticed Italian tour groups and plenty of French among the languages spoken in restaurants. Also, capitalism is coming. Vilnius already has shopping centres including a Marks & Spencer, H&M and McDonald's. Thankfully no Starbucks. Yet.
- There are no grand staircases or glass boxes leading to cashpoint. I didn't notice any banks until we needed cash on the last day and had to ask where one was. The cashpoint is literally a hole in the wall.
- Our electrical devices super-charged like they never do at home.
