The Easter holidays, instead of spending them bored in Alcoy, whilst Javi worked, I decided to catch the cheapest direct flight from Alicante out of there. This just happened to be Lithuania at only 150 euros.

Ryanair, with whom I was flying, don´t fly into the capital, they fly into the much smaller city of Kaunas. With everything that I had read about the place, it wasn´t the kind of city that you´d want to spend 5 days in, however the capital, Vilnius, just over an hour away on the bus has much more to offer a backpacker. With this, I decided to spend four days in Vilnius and the surrounding area, and my final day in Kaunas so I was close the airport and to say that I had seen it.

Arriving in Kaunas, I had read that there were buses direct from the airport to Vilnius, which is true. However, these need to be booked in advance, which I obviously had not done. With this I asked around trying to find someone who spoke English and could help me. I began to panic when no one could and on the off chance I asked a younger couple who also seemed to be hanging around, now although they didn´t speak English they did speak Spanish, having been on my flight from Alicante. My luck was in.

Turns out not to be difficult to get to Vilnius, you need to catch the number 29 local bus to the centre of Kaunas and then either a train (18 litas - 1 hour 15 min) or the bus (19 litas - 1 hour 30 mins).

Vilnius itself isn´t very big and the old town can be explored on foot, which I did the first day that I arrived. This shouldn´t take more than a day to complete as everything is really close, and the things that are on offer are to be taken in from the outside, not really things that can be entered and explored in great depth.

Things not to be missed in the old town include; a visit to the town hall, the presidential palace, saint Anna's church and the great views from the tower at the top of the hill where you can see the cathedral and the square. I also went to the city wall where there is another view point although not nearly as nice as the one next to the tower and I was recommended to go at night. I´m glad I went with another guy from the hostel as I don´t think I would have been very comfortable going there alone as there were many Goths hanging out, drinking and shouting loudly. Not surprisingly, we didn´t stay long.

Day two, and my first full day in Lithuania involved a popular day trip to the town of Trakai which is a must in my opinion. The town is both reachable by train and bus, but I chose the latter of the two which took 30 minutes and cost me only 6 litas. This castle, which is situated between two lakes, makes for a pleasant, picturesque town and with the sun shining made it even more worthwhile. The castle, like everything I found in Lithuania, wasn´t expensive to enter, 18 litas, and I´d recommend it to all apart from the disabled as there were many steps and many exhibitions on many different floors only accessible on foot.

Now I said that this was a day trip, but you don´t require the full day to see and appreciate it all, although if you are there for lunch a typical food is Kibinai, which is a pasty filled with the filling of your choice, lamb, chicken, vegetables etc. I ate these twice, once in Trakai and another time in Vilnius and it is said that in Trakai they are much nicer, personally I didn't notice the difference and thought they were great both times, but can´t argue with the locals.

Since I arrived back in Vilnius early after my trip to Trakai, I used the time to visit another country. This is not a typo, within the capital of Vilnius there is an extremely small country which goes by the name of Uzupis. Apparently if you go on the first of April you can get your passport stamp, gutted that I missed that opportunity. There isn´t much to see or do in this "country" but you can go see their constitution which is on display and is a good read.

Dinner involved local traditional food in "Aline Leiciai" where the food was great, the service was fantastic and the locally brewed beer gave you a real sense of Lithuania. I liked this place so much that I returned there the following night to try some more traditional food. One of the few things that I hate about traveling alone is going to restaurants and eating by yourself. Luckily the first night I went with a fellow backpacker from the hostel, but the second night I had to venture in on my own. I want to say a big thank you to the two Americans who invited me to their table on the second night so that I wouldn´t have to eat alone. Great people, who were in Lithuania searching for long lost relatives and they made me feel very welcome and were a pleasure to meet.

My third day and I was worried that I was running out of things to do in Vilnius. I had already visited the city and seen all it had to offer. A Singaporean that I had met in Trakai was going to the hill of crosses which I had thought was too far away. With nothing else to do, I went with him. A four hour bus journey at 6.30 in the morning to Siauliai and a further 30 minute journey to the road that passed near it, and finally a 20 minute walk took me to the hill of crosses. Although it was a hassle to get there it is an unmissable sight in terms of what Lithuania has to offer. There is little known really about why it started, but it is rumoured that families placed crosses there in remembrance to those deported to Siberia. What is widely known however, is whilst during the Soviet Union empowerment, they bulldozed all the 400 or so crosses down, and people used to crawl back at the dead of night to erect them once more.

Now there are more crosses than one can imagine, the original 400 have been lost in the hordes of crosses now present on the hill. For me, this places wasn't as eerie as one might have imagined maybe as it was not a sight of the thousands of deaths that people upon first seeing it might think. It was more disobedience against the Soviet Union to start, and now many place crosses as wishes for the newlyweds or for a new born so the hill now doesn´t only represent suffering but love.

I had booked my bus tickets in advance and was unsure what time I´d want to return, so I had chosen the last bus possible which left at 1900. This turned out to be way too much time, and I ended up having to buy another ticket for the 1500 bus as I had nothing left to do in the area. These tickets are not cheap, each way cost me almost 50 litas so don´t make the same mistake as I did, wait until you are in Siauliai before purchasing the return.

Since it was a long day, I decided to relax in the hostel upon my return from the hill of crosses. I chose to stay in "home made house" which is located in the old town. Very close to both the train and bus station, as well as the town hall so it is in an ideal location. It is small and only sleeps up to 12 people but the free breakfast, which was different every morning, and the excellent company made it a nice place to stay. My only concern about the place is the one shower that it has and there are only two toilets, one of which she recommended we didn´t use as there was a slanted roof. The compensation, however, was the great people and the chance to try Lithuanian wine, which is unusual as it is not made from grapes but from either cherries or other berries.

My last day in Vilnius and I took a trip to the KGB museum with three other girls from the hostel. I would have gone here earlier but oddly it wasn´t open neither the Monday nor the Tuesday. This is a great morning activity and took a couple of hours to go round as there is a lot to read and there are also the holding cells where the KGB held prisoners and you can learn about the tortures inflicted upon the people of Lithuania.

My last visit before catching the bus to Kaunas was a trip up the bell tower next to the university campus. The 8 lita entrance fee is a bit steep in my opinion, but the views are awesome but not for the faint hearted. The glass lift that takes you almost to the top is scary in itself, not to mention the further climb of the steps to the reach the outside of the building. The panoramic views are worth it if you don´t suffer from vertigo.

Arriving in Kaunas late meant I didn´t have much time that day to see much, I did however take a trip to the park to watch the sunset which was nothing to write home about, if I´m being honest. What is worth mentioning was the dinner that I ate. There are many traditional dishes and I like to make sure I try as many as possible when traveling. The farmer´s stew that I had that night was by far the best dish I ate on my trip and it was in a restaurant called "Berneliu Uzeiga." Other typical dishes included the potato, onion and meat pancakes, fried bread, and the most traditional was a sticky potato stuffed with meat and looked like it also had rice in it.

Last day! With my flight being at night, I had the whole day to explore Kaunas, but the whole day wasn´t needed as there really isn´t that much on offer. I went straight to the old town of the city where the town hall is located as well as the castle. I entered the castle, but there wasn´t that much to see inside. There are few churches worth seeing from the outside and I did venture inside one of them. I also took the long walk up to see the "Monumental Christ´s Resurrection Church" and I´ve never been so disappointed with a church. A modern white building that just wasn´t suited to the place, but hey, I´ve seen it.

An uneventful journey back to the airport, which by the way is tiny with only 2 gates and not nearly enough space for everyone trying to board even just one of the Ryanair flights.

Safely back in Spain, planning the next adventure to India in August.