Kaoru was going to wake up early and go to the market before breakfast. But she slept in,so we got up, showered and had a relaxed breakfast (again, inclusive). We left the hotel about 10.00.

Our first stop was the cathedral, for a bit of a look. Then it was off to the tourist information centre to get a few plans. We decided to get the Vilnius city card for €19.99. We got them to start it from 12.00 as we didn’t really know what we were going to useit on.

We walked around the city and went to Uzopia – a Republic within the city. They have passport stamps but i wasn’t game to put one in my passport so i just put it in a notebook. We sat down and had a drink and a think.

Once we had made our plan, the rest of the day was going to be busy. So we payed and rushed down to the market for a look, taking photos of a few sites along the way, including the gates of dawn. It was quite a small market so didn’t take us as long as we were expecting. We bought some pastries for the afternoon.

Next was to get on the “hop on hop off” bus. So we went to the ticket office, showed our Vilnius card and were given our passes, just in time to catch the bus. We were doing this as a means to an end – we needed to be back at cathedral square by 1.30 and the busarrives there at 1.28. So we got to see some of the outside of the city, and then got off and rushed to the statue.

Now for the “alternative” city walk. Not around the old city but started by catching a bus (€1) to an old neighborhood, nestled between ever-growing skyscrapers of the business district. It was a lovely area, which still didn’t have running water to the houses!

Walking through the cbd a bit, we went to the22nd floor of the Radisson hotel for a commanding view of the city. There is a bar but it was closed so we could only look out the two end windows of the rectangular shaped building. It was still great to see the city from up so high.

After a short walk we stopped for a break, where we had a crepe and i had a bottle of gira. Everybody else had tea or coffee. Then to the bus stop to go to the other end of the city.

We walked through the train station and were shown a cafe recently opened that looks out on the tracks. It was about 4.00 so too early for hipsters to be there. Then we were taken to an older part of the station where a number of trains and the platform had been converted to another hipster cafe. Not having a man-bun or beard meant i couldn’t stay for a drink😊. But it was cool to see.

We went through a number of other similarly bizarre buildings, before getting to the market. We didn’t have to rush there earlier! but at least we got pastries last time (which we had consumed by now). Our walk then concluded with us saying goodbye and giving the guide a tip, as it was a free tour.

We went to the fort and were given another museum to walk through, and more views of the city. Seeing the artifacts discovered makes it hard to comprehend the times that people have lived through.

We walked back through the village with our next destination in mind, but decided to havean ice cream. While thinking about what to get i got a tap on my shoulder. It was one of the guys from our Riga trip! They invited us to join them (they were sitting across the road) so we sat down and had a beer while sharing stories of the day. But we couldn’t stay long as there were still some things to cram in.

We rushed to the cathedral belfry but were too late. We made it 15 minutes before closing time but last entrance is 30 minutes. So no luck there.

We tried to find the entrance to the grand dukes tower but couldn’t find it. We got to the palace but didn’t want to do that right now. so instead we went back to our hotel for the toilet, and asked where the entrance was. We got conflicting directions from the 2staff members but decided if we did a lap we would have to find it.

Sure enough we got to it and started the longwalk up the rocky, cobblestone path. We were wondering where we were supposed to pay. Once we got to the top of the hill (the base of the tower) we found the ticket office and showed our card. We looked around the ground floor of the tower and were pretty disappointed at what we had seen, as there was nowhere else to go. But on our way out we were directed up some more stairs and after looking through a number of rooms along the way, eventually made it to the top. And this was the most awesome 360° view of the town!

Once photos were taken and we had enjoyedthe view for a while we made our way back down to the bottom. Then across the river and up to the top of 3 cross hill (not to be mistaken with the hill of crosses). This was atrying hike after all we had done for the day but again was worth it to look back over the town from such height. We took photos with our “Shaw and Partners” hats for Ben, as thisseemed like a nice spot to do it.

We walked back a different way and made our way to the air kitchen. It was open this time! It was basically a food truck festival with music and beer. We walked past a truck that was scraping melted cheese on something so decided then and there it was what we wanted. It came with potato, bacon and salad, and was a melted Swiss-type block of cheese. I got a beer and we found a seat and enjoyed our dinner.

As we were finishing it started to rain so we waited 5 minutes for that to pass and startedthe walk back to the hotel. We were thinking of going for a drink but decided to just go home and have an early night. So we packedour bag for tomorrow and went to bed.