The Baltics have been my favourite region so far, it’s been a mixture of amazing weather, great food and historical cities with the added bonus of living really well quite reasonably.
Latvia was a hard act to follow after our stay in Riga, Lithuania was going to have to pull out all the stops to entertain us. We drove across the border and were immediately surprised by the lush green fields and tree lined, straight flat roads.
Our first stop was for brunch at a roadside pub with a huge beer garden set on the edge of a lake. The food was really good, we enjoyed chicken pancakes with a creamy mushroom sauce and the traditional meat filled potato pancakes served with sour cream, a hugely satisfying meal to kick off our journey through Lithuania.
A short way down the road we stopped at the famous Hill of Crosses. It is a fascinating place, there are thousands of crucifixes on a hill, all in no particular order. Whilst we were there we saw a couple in their wedding outfits and a young girl having photos taken in her Confirmation dress. It’s obviously a very religious place, even the Pope visited and gave his thanks to the Lithuanian people for creating such a monument. We aren’t religious at all but really appreciated the quirky and spiritual feeling of the place.
Early the next morning we took to the road and arrived at a riverside campsite. It was a good location for exploring the local area. We were the first campers of the season and really liked the laidback feel of the site. We were located in central Lithuania and there were quite a few good attractions.
We stumbled across this home based bakery, the Latvian lady who bakes all the bread using traditional recipes and oven was great, she didn’t speak any English but we got by with Google Translate. We sampled all her sour dough rye breads which are sold by weight. They had such deep, sour flavours and were laced with caraway seeds.
Next stop was the tree tops challenge for the boys.
A stop at an amusement park for mini golf and labyrinth fun was next on our list
We were really enjoying the weather until the rain came and with it came mosquitoes, literally as big as my hand and so blood thirsty !! It was time to move out and away from the riverside campsite (and the enormous mozzies) we drove to the city campsite just outside the city of Vilnius. It was run by a super friendly and helpful guy, it was perfectly located for sightseeing in the city.
The following day we headed for the old town of Vilnius, the old towns of the Baltics have proven to be absolutely stunning and are always a good place to learn the history and sample local food and drink.
Vilnius really didn’t disappoint, the old town was much larger than we had experienced before, great for getting our daily exercise in.
We had lunch at a medieval themed restaurant serving tradition Latvian dishes.
Mikey sampling the local deep fried rye bread and cheese dip
I had the wild mushroom, sour soup served in a rye bread bowl – really tasty
A traditional Latvian bakery, selling breads and sweet biscuits and pastries by weight.
Our next stop was the geographic centre of Europe (if you believe what they say) not too far from Vilnius.
Finally, Jon and I had a really enjoyable date night before leaving Lithuania. We found this gorgeous Lebanese restaurant called Leyla, they served huge sharing plates. The vegetarian plate was so good and absolutely enormous ! – I washed down with my favourite cherry beer.
Lithuania was another real gem, I am very sad to be saying goodbye to the Baltics but it’s time to move on and Poland is calling.
Retired to Explore 