Churches churches everywhere…

After Tallinn, I headed off for Vilnius, completing my tour of the Baltic capitals. I’m not counting Kallingrad, although I’m not even sure that’s a capital, being in a Russian enclave. Anyway….I digress.

Being completely land locked and not in any practical way accessible by cruise ship, Vilnuius hasn’t been infected by the plague of cruise ship tour groups. Although to be fair, those cruise ships must be allowing Tallinn to make a shit load of money. As for Vilnius, not as photogenic as Tallinn, but an interesting city. If you’re interested in churches then you’ll be in your element….there’s tonnes of them here. I would also recommend the Lietuva Hotel, part of the Reval Hotel chain. Ok, the hotel is a typical concrete block type of place, but it has a really cool top floor bar. All round glass windows, great view over Vilnius old town, and a retro-70’s look (although I wouldn’t be surprised if this place hadn’t actually changed since the 70’s ) Oh yeah, and its only a short walk over the river from the old town.

In amongst doing all the touristy things and drinking lots of cheap beer, for a cold hard slice of reality the KGB Museum [Genocido Aukų Muziejus] is well worth a visit. Wandering round the restored prison in the basement, it feels like some kind of medieval torture chamber. It’s a chilling realization that this place was very much in use during the much more recent 20th century. The catalog of techniques used reads very similar to what today some are calling “enhanced interrogation techniques“. You will definitely need a drink after this.

So, after Vilnius it was back to Oslo before heading off again….next stop Berlin.