Day 49 - Vilnius by Segway

Although we planned to stay another night in Vilnius, we decided we would rather do it somewhere else. Therefore although there was now the chance to stay where we were a second night, after breakfast we checked out anyway.

Parallel parking, Vilnius style

We left our loaded up car in the hostel car park and walked to the Tourist Info office in the Old City. They were able to give us a full list of accommodation options in the city so we mapped out a route to go and check them out and pick one to stay at tonight. Since this route took us past the first choice we had bombed out on yesterday because they were fully booked we figured we might as well check again just in case. Luckily for us they did now have a room, so we were able to check-in and start our day exploring Vilnius.

I had picked up a brochure for Segway Tours while at the Tourist Office, and having seen these in action in both Prague and Krakow, Laura and I were keen to give them a try. Since the office was not far away we went there first. We were each able to have a little try on a segway before we booked a tour. We opted for a guided tour, rather than just going solo, so we didn’t waste time working out where to go, and also so that we could learn a bit more about the city’s history. It was going to take couple of hours for a tour guide to be available so we set off to check out the old Castle Tower and view it provides of the Old City.

We checked out the Belfry and the Orthodox Cathedral on the way to the Castle Tower. It used to be possible to walk up the steep hill on which the tower stands, but now there is no option but to use the short but steep funicular. (Our theory is that they had to close the walkways to stop the funicular from running at a loss!). The museum part of the Castle Tower was not overly interesting but the expansive view from the top of the tower was certainly very good, especially given that it was such a lovely sunny day.

Dude on Segway

We had a quick lunch before returning for our 1:00pm Segway Tour. We were joined by an Irishman, Cormack, who thankfully didn’t gloat about our recent Rugby World Cup clash. Our guide, Agnestina, was very nice and we learnt quite a bit during out 90 minute tour. It was interesting to learn that the reason for the wide nature strip between two streets was that the Russians had demolished the row of houses in between and they had never been rebuilt – in fact the cellars still existed beneath the nature strip. To be precise what Agnestina actually said was that the Russians had “damaged the houses to the ground”, which was a quaint turn of phrase. During the tour Cormack and I discussed the RWC a little. He had actually been able to watch the recent match in question and was able to tell me something about it. Meanwhile, we also quickly mastered the Segway to the extent that by the end I think Laura would have liked the chance to find out how fast they could go! They were great fun.

With the tour over we first headed back to the market had passed during our tour so that Laura could by the cute Lithuanian hat that she had seen. And having had Agnestina tell her how much it cost Laura was able to get it for the real price, not the slightly inflated “tourist” price the stall holder tried to charge.

Old City from the TV Tower

After that we headed to the TV Tower, about a 20 minute trolley bus ride away on a ridge to the west of the city, where we took in the view. The viewing platform was on level 19 and on such a clear day offered an excellent view in all directions. The suburbs built during the Soviet control of Lithuania could be clearly differentiated with their orderly blocks of utilitarian high rise. It was surprising to see just how far greater Vilnius has spread, interspersed with generous expanses of pine and spruce trees. We also saw the memorial to the 14 station staff shot by the Red Army when they stormed the tower during the 1991 uprising.

Once we had taken in the view we caught a trolley bus back into the city to walk up the hill of three crosses, across the canal from the Castle Tower (both had been clearly visible from the TV Tower). We actually managed to find the right hill to climb on the second attempt. It was a nice view over the city as the sun was setting.

From there we walked back to pick up our car and did a pretty good job navigating the one-way streets to our new lodgings. When we arrived I had to negotiate a very narrow entrance off a narrow lane leading to a small courtyard that we could park in – so small it took about a 15 point turn to turn the car around so that I wouldn’t have to try and reverse out.

It was now nearly 8:00pm so after we got cleaned up we went to a restaurant around the corner recommended by the hostel where we had a lovely dinner.