When we woke up on our first morning in Vilnius... we felt more like we 'regained consciousness'. After our rush-job stopover in Stockholm and the late night arrival the previous night, let's just say it was a very, very slow morning. Breakfast. Well that took a while. It actually took quite a while just to fight our way out of the big, squishy king size bed - which was a joy after the sofa-bed in the Iceland cabin. We thought long and hard about doing a walking tour of Vilnius... but there was no way we'd make the 10.30 am departure and the 12 noon version was leaving from a spot over a kilometre from the hotel... like doing a walking tour before we started the tour. In the end we lurched out into blue sky and sunshine after noon sometime. Cruised around the old town, looked in amber shops (it's what you do in the Baltic states), took some photos... then ended up back in the hotel in time for a snooze. We'd normally avoid hotel restaurants like the plague (hey... it's not hard - our hotels very rarely have staff, let alone restaurants), but in this instance it rather sneakily looks just like a restaurant as you walk past it on the street - almost no indication it's part of a hotel. So even at breakfast, people are coming in and eating there. We spoiled ourselves with dinner in-house and figured, for sure, given the nice weather, we'd do a walking tour the very next day. When we woke up on Day 2, it was snowing - no sign of the blue sky or the sunshine. Hmmmm... We had a lazy day and launched ourselves into the world in the early evening for a walk through the old town and a performance at the Lithuanian National Symphony. Quite possibly the most comfortable seats we've had at any of our shows - and the acoustics were amazing - we were up in the balcony, maybe 3 rows from the back, and the view and sound quality could not have been better. An icecream to share on the walk home rounded the night off well. Day 3 dawned and it was time for our walking tour whether we wanted to or not (though by now we were recovered from the Stockholm extravaganza.) It wasn't fine but it wasn't snowing, so off we went. Rather fortunately, we had an email from an Irish friend the night before who mentioned the clocks were going forward - which meant we didn't run an hour late for the tour - woo hoo! The guide was very colourful and very proud of her country and it's ancient roots. We walked hard and far and even visited a foreign country in our travels - the amazing Republic of Uzupis - a make believe country? An artists' colony? An alternative place of being? All good thoughts. Many artistic highlights through here, not least of which the book shop stop with it's resident cat-guardian (without whom the shop would have closed) and the Guardian Angel of Uzupis. The parliament of this wonderful spot is held in a pub. Need we say more. The tour finished in front of the Presidential Palace and we were lucky to time our 1 pm arrival with the ceremonial changing of the guard. We traipsed back to the hotel (and knowing we probably wouldn't leave again otherwise) figured we'd better investigate a cheap/cheerful/locals joint about 5 minutes away with a view to dinner. It was so good (and warm... we defrosted just looking at menus) we figured never mind about dinner and stayed for lunch instead. Solid peasant food washed down with Lithuanian honey mead... very warming indeed and half the price of the albeit reasonable restaurant at the hotel. Our final night involved mostly packing. The final morning (27 March... Monday) was breakfast at leisure, last packing and a departure at the hideously reasonable time 11.30 am. Finally - NOT silly-o'clock! Here's a laugh that demonstrates the joys of booking coach travel in Europe as early as you can. LuxExpress releases a certain amount of tickets at €5 - so our 4 hour and 15 minute trip from Vilnius to Riga, Latvia only cost €10. The 10 minute cab from the hotel to the coach station cost €9. Mind, if we'd booked the coach on the day of travel the tickets would have been more like €50 between us. So off we went on a coach that we wished was a plane. Comfy reclining seats, loads of leg room, free tea/chocolate/coffee, seat back movies (finally saw The Girl on the Train). And. And - he arrived 15 minutes early into Riga. Wow. Now we just have to watch the last 15 minutes of that movie on our next coach trip - from Riga to Tallinn, Estonia. Must admit... Given we started our travelling ways in the middle of 2012 (and via a year of housesitting in Sydney), we've essentially been travelling for over 4 and a half years. Still LOVE travel... but now, when we are nipping through countries like hot dinners, must admit to being just a tiny bit tired of travelling... bring on the next few housesits!