The alarm woke me at 730. Kaoru was in the shower. Once i had showered we had breakfast and then checked out to catch our next tour bus. We found it just outside wherewe had been dropped off 2 days ago.

Today’s tour had 7 of us; we said hello and all got in our car and off we went. Our first stop was a the Salispals Memorial monument built by the Russians in the 1960s showing the suppression from the Germans. It is a controversial monument to the Latvians, and as our guide was explaining it, the emotion in her voice was clear.

Back in the car, after a quick rest stop we went to Rundalez Palace, where we could walk around the magnificent gardens and admire the palace from both inside and out.

Lunch was another half hour down the road, at a nice little restaurant. Kaoru and i both had venison, but she also had some soup. I had a beer but Kaoru tried the local drink – nesa (???). It was described as a fermented bread drink and was really quite nice and refreshing.

Our next stop was the hill of crosses. We knew this was on the itenerary so were looking forward to it. But it cannot be described by words or pictures. So many thousands of crosses on this hill in the middle of nowhere. Ranging from gigantic ones like from a cemetery to small ones made from twisting lollypop sticks together. Anna explained the history of it to us which was another reminder of the hard times these people have been through.

We continued on towards Vilnius, and i noticed a sign saying 205km to go. It’s 290km total if you go direct so we certainly were taking a scenic route. We made a slightdetour via Kaunas and walked around the old city. There were lots of churches and we went in the one that Pope John Paul II visiteda couple of years earlier. We also saw the high water mark from when the town floodedduring the construction of the hydro dam.

Another 75 minutes of driving and we finally made it to Vilnius. The traffic was that of a big city. Eventually we found somewhere to park, got out of the car and said goodbye. We could hear music playing so there was some event nearby. We walked across the road to Amberton hotel and checked in. Our room here was lovely! Much larger than our other rooms. However it was a twin, not a double. So we just had beds next to each other with about a10cm gap between them.

Kaoru did a load of washing and i checked work things. We then went out for dinner. Our plan was “open kitchen” – an open market that operates Friday and Saturday nights. So we made our way down there, through swarms of people coming down another street near the cathedral square – the event had obviously just finished (we later found out it was to do with the president standing down after her 2 terms); but there was nothing to be seen. So instead we wandered back up and found a Lithuanian cuisine restaurant.

Dinner was a couple of things from the menu. The first was a mushroom soup in a bread bowl. The second was a crepe with meat inside. The third was a Lithuanian specialty -potato around meat. Didn’t go down too well!But at least we tried it.

Quite stuffed, we needed a walk, and found a place to have a beer. But we were also quite tired so went back to the hotel and went to bed.