Day 4 31th Jan 2023

Exploring Kaunas 

A much better overnight sleep but we seemed to be still in UK time as we didn’t get going till around 10:00. Today was to be another museum day but this time here in Kaunas. We decided to walk to the War Museum which took us up our favourite VERY long and steep steps. 

Once we had reached the high point it was quite flat until we moved sufficiently south to descend to the centre of the old city. The variation in age, style, and size of the buildings is dramatic with very modern apartments interspersed with old wooden single story houses on Telšių g

The descent to the museum area was again very steep so we were not planning to go back this way! The square outside the museum is spectacular with the continuous flame in honour of all those who died in the many conflicts trying to maintain Lithuanian sovereignty.

On entry through the large regal doors at the top of the steps we paid our €10 for the two of us and were show where to go initially to hang up our coats and then start with the crypt where there were large marble memorial plaques in a darkened hall listing soldiers of the different regiments

From the crypt we progressed through the various exhibitions in this huge building with its very high ceilings. Some fascinating exhibits include the crushed remains of the aircraft flown by the two Lithuanians, Darius and Girėnas, to be the first to fly air mail from the US to Europe; unfortunately their plane crashed before reaching Lithuania but it was of great significance to the Lithuanian population.

Navigating round the exhibition took a considerable time so we decided to find a cafe close by. However the one across the square was full of students and pretty noisy so we walked on until we came across the Caffeine cafe which we had been in before. Now on the boulevard we turned east and walked east to the magnificent church at the end of the boulevard before setting off uphill towards the sports university and surrounding wooded park.

Along the boulevard there are lots of fashion shops and we visited a few then we went into a shoe shop which had lots of bargains on display. In here we met an Englishman who had travelled yesterday to have a consultation about his foot. I was very impressed with a particular pair of shoes and the lovely manager gave us an extra 10% off the sale price of these Bugatti boots:

 

Armed with my new, more comfortable footwear we continued on our journey past the end of Laisvės al. and its magnificant church, which doubles as a blind sensory exhibition.

It was a stiff walk up the pavement to the top of the hill where there were great views along the walk through the park past the university sports arena and the spectacular Darius and Girėnas Monument.

And then random sculptures:

From the end of the foot/cycle path we took a bus back to the Kauno Pilis junction so that Catharine could go looking in another charity shop. 

Now it was time to walk back to the apartment via IKI, which we hadn’t been in yet, and Lidl to stock up for dinner. 

Back home Catharine cooked another great carbonara and we settled down to watch some Netflix to recover from another big day of walking.

Day 3 30th Jan 2023

 A day out in Vilnius

A slightly restless night so neither of us feeling too good this morning, however we eventually got our act together and having researched our travel arrangements walked down past Lidl to the bus stop at the junction near Kaunas Pilis. 

From there we caught the no 5 bus, a trolley bus, to Kaunas Railway Station. 

We had organised the tickets for the bus on the Ziogas app but struggled to use this as we didn’t quite understand the instructions. So for future reference the bus has a code like 161 and a QR code on a sign near the Wi-Fi scan unit. The code can be input into the app and then the app asks for the ticket to be confirmed. Now you have a limited time for your travel.

The bus journey took us through the centre of Kaunas old city and out to the station. At the station the lady at the ticket office was helpful but as the UK is no longer in the EU we were not allowed to claim the senior citizen discount! However the fare for our 1:15 hour train journey to Vilnius and back was great value at €35:50 for the two of us.  Today's sterling value is £/€1=0.88 so the total fare was £31.24. I don’t think we’d get that sort of fare on the UK network, especially in a 2 storey carriage with superb views of the snow covered landscape. 

One of the major facets of the railways here are the many extensive sidings at large industrial areas making their transport infrastructure much more efficient.

On arrival in Vilnius we exited the station in a bit of a snow storm and walked down towards our selected venue of the Palace of the Grand Dukes of  Lithuania. On the way Catharine noticed some really good looking charity clothes shops so we planned to call in on them on the way back to the station in the late afternoon, 

The cobbled streets and snow made walking quite tricky and we stopped off at another Caffeine outlet for a coffee to keep us going for the rest of the walk. Another 850m past the café was our destination which is a very spectacular building adjacent to the Vilniaus Katedra on a significant square. 

To the east lies the Ducal Palace of the Upper Castle. Due to my lack of research we discovered that the palace was closed on Mondays and so we decided to go on the funicular ride to the top of the hill on which the tower and associated fortifications stand.

The fort overlooks the river on the north and the older areas of the city on the south. 

Day 2 Jan 29th Kaunas

Catharine and I slept well after our long day yesterday and didn’t get out of bed till around 09:00. After a lazy morning breakfast and organising ourselves we set off to walk down the bank of the Neris river to the confluence and then back upstream on the Nemunas to the south of the city. It is a lovely walk past many odd statues/sculptures, the old Kaunas castle and various play areas. Even though it was cold and snowing there were a fair amount of walkers out with their dogs and lots of kids.

One of the art installations at Kauno Pilis

We returned to the apartment via Lidl for our lunch and some recuperation time after all the walking around. I had bought some dark rye bread the day before and Catharine had her baguette with slices of pork which seems to be high on the list of foods here. 

Later we prepared to go back to try another menu at Avilys. I had the paella and Catharine the pork

Mark's Paella and Catharine's Pork

Return to Kaunas Jan 2023

Return with Catharine to Lithuania 2023

The plan is to return to Kaunas, this time with Catharine, to have a week visiting the Kaunas region of Lithuania and to go for a checkup with Nord Orthopaedics team and to give them some feedback on my TKR revision from January 24 last year.

Yesterday we set off from home on stage 1 of our trip taking our dog Jazz to our sons work  so that they can look after him while we are away. 

We checked the traffic at Britannia Bridge before setting off from Star Autocare, Gaerwen. Our departure time from the garage was well judged with very little delay getting off Anglesey, usually a problem with the closure of the Menai Bridge since last year. And We were lucky with the remains of the journey to Catharine’s Niece's house in Warrington. They had kindly offered to deliver us to the airport in time for the flight this morning. So we had a good evening catching up with them all and a comfortable overnight sleep.

We are now onboard the light from Liverpool to Kaunas, Ryanair 09:55 which took off 2 minutes early. I was refused permission to take my computer bag through check in as I was not a priority boarder. 

The flight is due into Kaunas at 14:30 local time (EET) 2 hours earlier than GMT. I changed my phone onto EET to see how much longer we are in the air, but I couldn't see the document as I hadn’t made it visible offline.

As we disembarked we had quite a long wait in the queue for passport control, but as we passed through there were two taxis from Nord Clinic waiting for their passengers. As I had not arranged to be collected we were asking for directions to the bus stop but then the taxi driver put two and two together and realised when he ran my phone and I answered that we were the ones he was waiting for. So we were transported to our apartment here in Kaunas directly!

The entry details for the accommodation were not quite as precise as we would have liked but eventually we twiggeed we were at the wrong door. The smart lock also had us confused on exit but we got the hang of it as we started our walk to Lidl to do some shopping.

 

Before setting off we had been looking at how to get to the old city centre and I forgot to change the destination as we set off to Lidl. A bit of a detour climbing a huge flight of concrete steps before I realised the error of my ways and stopped Google maps, restarting it to find Lidl. Snow was mostly cleared from the roads but the pavements were still covered in a thin layer of snow making some areas quite slippery. 

Lidl was just beyond an indoor market with some interesting shops, including a IKEA in a very modern building . Once in Lidl we realised that our lack of linguistic skills in Lithuanian made it quite difficult to read the food labels! Lidl's bakery included dark Rye Bread, one of my favourites when in Europe.

Armed with our shopping we took the more direct route back to the apartment and had a cup of tea while we planned our evening event.

The apartment is 'bijou' approx 10 mx 5m with a separate  shower room and toilet adjacent to the double bed. The kitchen has a couple of interesting items with a drying rack inside the cupboard. Very good value at around £55 per night.

Once we had got ourselves sorted out we walked back past Lidl towards the southern part of Kaunas where we looked for a restaurant which would take our fancy. Eventually we found Avilys which seemed well attended and was open with just two tables left. The food was absolutely fantastic; duck with beetroot and blackberry sauce and a concoction of garlic potato which was very thinly sliced and reconstituted in an oblong block.

Main course at Avilys

Ice cream at Avilys

The restaurant is in the brick vaulted cellar of the building and is a home brewery too. Some people were getting beer served in a significant ‘yard of ale’.

Our table was next to a young English chap with his mum and I stopped and had a chat with them on my way to pay our bill. The meal was superb and the cost was very reasonable at €66 including one of their beers and a bottle of sparkling water.

The walk back to the apartment is now becoming very familiar and seems to take no time at all. The fuel stations here all have LPG and the price here is very reasonable, €0.65/ltr compoared to the UK average rate of £0.9/ltr