Day 185 - Wednesday, July 25
I opted for the
LuxExpress again from Riga to Vilnius. It's amazing how happy I get about little things like a comfortable bus with wifi, and I got to see some of the countryside in the process. Sidenote: I think SE Asia has forever changed how I view transportation comfort.
In Vilnius I stayed at
Home Made House, which was a great place to stay. That afternoon I explored a bit and took too many photos, as usual:
I think Vilnius wins the award for ugliest Opera House:
I grabbed some dinner at a hole-in-the-wall by the hostel that was the first place I've found since leaving the US that was dedicated to serving up good beer; they only served Lithuanian microbrews. Though there was a bit of a language barrier (apparently the word "hops" and "hoppy" meant nothing to them), after a sampling a few others, I managed to find a very good Lithuanian beer:
I opted for a bottle because the draft beer wasn't exactly cold:
Day 186 - Thursday, July 26
I saw a lot of the city on Tuesday, so Wednesday I took a train through the countryside to the city of Trakai, which is just outside of Vilnius. It is a smaller town bordering a lake and home of a cool midieval castle that has been restored. As I was going through the castle, all I could think about was how much it reminded me of what I had pictured while reading about castles in the Game of Thrones. But, I haven't seen the HBO series, so perhaps it looks nothing like HBO's interpretation.
Day 187 - Friday, July 27
I might've spent another day in Vilnius, but I wanted to get to Warsaw on Friday to meet some of Karolina Czaykowska's friends and enjoy the weekend there. I was disappointed to learn that there was no LuxExpress bus from Vilnius to Warsaw, but their sister company, Simple Express covered that route. Though not as roomy, I had 2 seats to myself, free wifi, free movies and an electrical plug at my seat. So once again, I was a pretty happy camper as I spent the afternoon and evening checking out the Lithuanian and Polish countryside, which looks a bit like the Midwestern US: very flat with lots of farms and fields of corn/wheat/etc.
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