Day 65

24 June 2013

Before leaving Australia I had my own thoughts about the comfort level of trains and buses and the thought I may or may not like to travel on them. Thus far I had a fair share of both of them. Trains are less comfortable to sit in, although most trains I have had thus far have been "sleepers" which during the day are “sitters” meaning that the seat are actually designed to be beds at night. Buses however are very different. I have had them as comfortable as a first class aircraft seat and of course the sleeper busses in Asia. The 4 ½ hour trip to Vilnius was no different. This time even a fairly large table in front of me had space for the laptop and a sleepy head. At first I wanted to by-pass Vilnius as I thought there was more of the same (like Tallinn and Riga) I suppose in a way it is, especially if you examine the historical fact of these cities. However, contrary to my expectations the architecture of Vilnius is even more detailed than Tallinn. I was only able to have a short walk around the Old City but was impressed.


One of the interesting things I found was a set of footprints and a date plaque. On the 23rd of august 1989 the peoples of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia formed a 650 km long human chain holding hands from the town square of Vilnius all the way to Tallinn on the north coast of Estonia in protest to Russian dominance in their country. It worked as some time later the Russians did leave and all three countries gained their independence.