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Hey there,
So now we are in Vilnius, which is the capital of Lithuania. It's a very beautiful barok town.
We came from Klaipeda, which is a town near the curonian spit, a real natuarl wonder. The nature is just exactly the same as in Denmark: pine forests, green sump areas, beaches just like the ones we have back home and sand dunes! There was one sand dune overlooking the baltic sea and the lagoon, as the curonian spit is only 4 km wide, where you could see the sea from both sides. The view from that sand dune was just breathtaking. It was like discovering a new piece of land, which felt awesome.
Actually we rented some bikes in Nida, which is a city just 3 km away from the russian border, and drove through the forest for about 30 km to the next town with one stop at the sand dune. So if you ever go to Lithuania, go there! And by the way, you should also pass by the hill of crosses, which is in the 10 km North of Siaulei, in the middle of the country (more or less). It's a hill, in the middle of nowhere, with 100 000 of crosses (religious ones), and more are coming every day. The only thing was that it's difficult to get there. The tourist information pointed out a city which was about 80 km more south and so the bus we took stoped only at Siaulei, where we took another bus to the hill of crosses. But when we had taken lots of pictures and had walked through the mekka of crosses, there was only a bus coming in 3 hours. So we hitchhiked, which went quite smoothly.
So Vilnius seems like a very fun city with a big clash between the generations (our generation and our grand parents generation), but that we experienced also in the 2 other baltic countries. The generations before us seem to be so different from ours, because of the soviet occupation, that our generation hasn't experienced, and so our generation (born around the collapse of the soviet union) seem much more "pro-occidentalised", due to the bealtic countries adherence to the EU and their markets being oriented towards western economies. They drink just as much (remember the drunk guy??) and they also have a sort of "Christiania" outside town, called "the republic of Uzupio". They have their own constitution (for example: everyone has the right to die, but it is not an obligation) , president, police, school, bishop, flag(s), national anthem and so on. It's a quite small neighbourhood in Vilnius, originally a squat place that artists settled, back in the 80ies. They held these crazy parties, in old wooden houses and old soviet buildings, though the place is really charming and very popular. The name means "beyond the river", quite poetical actually, and is as a matter of fact situated on the other side of the river that crosses Vilnius.
So Vilnius has around a 100 churches, which is quite a lot, when you think that there are only 1/2 million inhabitants. The most spread religion is roman catholic, but there used to be 2 huge jewish ghettos inside the city wall, which were completely destroyed in the 2nd World War. The jewish represent less than 1% of the inhabitants in Vilnius now, compared to 40% before the war.
The old town of Vilnius is really pretty, with lots of cafes, restaurants, weird pubs and alternative clubs. We went out yesterday with some backpackers to see a sort of open air concert, (vilnius being the city of culture of europe this year)and went to 2 pubs, where a lot of russian was spoken and had a really fun time. I think it's much more pleasant than Riga, being smaller, more alternative and in general a funnier place than Riga, which seems overrunned by tourists and expecially guys travelling together in a country where booze and girls are cheap.
So next stop, Krakow, where we are going tomorrow by train...
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