Europe 2017: Day #18 Riga to Vilnius

Sunday, 20 August 2017

Everything seemed fine when we got up in the morning, and it looked like it was going to be a good day on the bus tour from Riga to Vilnius. Breakfast was consumed, bags were packed and we were out of the apartment on the street waiting for the taxi that we had asked the hotel to book for us. And we waited and waited. And it didn't come.

Ten minutes after the allotted time I gave up and headed to the hotel to drop off the keys in the hope I could find a cab. Taxis are hard to find in the Old Town as the streets are narrow and there is nowhere for them to park in a rank. Also we got the impression that cars of any description were actively discouraged from cruising the streets. Luckily a few blocks away I found an empty cab and somehow explained what I wanted to do, but we were cutting things a little fine. We had to get back to the apartment, load the luggage, head back to the hotel to check-out and drop off the keys, and then get around the other side of Old Town in time to catch the tour group at 9am.

The taxi-driver, after initially seeming to not understand what I wanted, then began to get some idea of our urgency and made a few dodgy U-turns and got us to our destination with 2 minutes to spare.  We had decided that Riga really didn't like us that much, though we had been pretty impressed by it overall.

The bus tour we were on to Vilnius was by the same company with whom we'd travelled from Riga, on the same bus, with the same driver, Triin (Estonian, short for Katherine). We were also travelling with three others from the previous trip along with a new tour guide learning the ropes, and two other young Australians in the middle of a seven-month European tour. We did three months back in 1987 and that was enough. Yet more Australians travelling. Frankly we are everywhere.

First stop was the Holocaust memorial just outside Riga at Salaspils, at what was once a concentration camp.  Built by the Soviets after the war it was dedicated to the memory of the members of the Jewish community who lost their lives to the Nazis. Steadfastly ignoring those who lost their lives to the Soviets.

Entrance under a great concrete beam

Figure denoting suffering

Beyond the huge concrete statues was the steady thump of a hart beat playing from somewhere on the grounds. Very emotive.

An hour or so later we were at Rundale Palace, a large baroque palace in the style of the St Petersburg Winter Palace. We had he choice of the inside or the gardens, and chose the interior.  While not finished the refurbishment is continuing and is pretty good.

After lunch the major stop was at the Hill of Crosses in northern Lithuania.  Bulldozed at least four times by the Soviets in the 1980s the local (not not so local) Lithuanians kept on recreating the mass of crosses as a show of peaceful protest.  No one is quite sure of the number of crosses placed here but it is very, very high.

The rain set in on the rest of the trip and we finally made it to Vilnius just before 9pm.  After a short cab ride we checked in without incident and had a late supper of leftover cheese, salami and a slighly sweetish South African chardonnay.