After an uneventful overnight stay in Klaipeda, and an afternoon on the bus, we arrived in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. We dropped our stuff at the hostel and made the most of the evening light (gets dark sometime after 9) by wandering round the ‘Old Town’ part of the city. Another UNESCO Listed ‘Old Town’ – this one boasting that it is the largest of them all.

Fortunately, it was significantly different so that it did not feel like a carbon copy of cities we had previously visited. The buildings all had well maintained and almost modern facades, and the uneven cobblestones that limited driving had been replaced by modern pavers on the busier streets to facilitate traffic flow. It felt like a ‘new’ ‘old town’.

After a few nice sunset shots down by the river, and some cheap Lithuanian fare, I was about to call it a night before a Canadian by the name of Chris persuaded me to head out for a drink. We found a place down the road ‘Woo Bar’ which had a live jazz band and the place was packed (it was a Monday no less). Stayed for a couple of beers – still very cheap!

The next morning we joined an elderly Australian couple (who had just done the Trans-Mongolian and stayed at backpackers along the way), a Brit and a French on the Free Walking Tour of Vilnius. It was a good tour, mostly circumnavigating the old town part of the city and explaining some of the more interesting parts of the city. Like Uzupio.

Uzupio is a bohemian suburb of Vilnius just over the River Vilnele (literally means ‘beyond the river’). In previous decades it was the poor area of the town, with high crime and prostitution. Naturally, artists started to move into the area as it cleaned up it’s image, taking advantage of the very low rent. Then some out-of-work artists decided to declare the area the Republic of Uzupio. They have their own ‘government’, police/military (9 men), post office and their own constitution. It is a funny read actually.

In the afternoon I wandered around the part of the Old Town I hadn’t seen and climbed the hill behind the city and enjoyed the view from the top.

That night we went to dinner with some one of the guys we met on the tour, his Couchsurfing hosts and their friends – including our tour guide from the morning. It was very multicultural – Germans, an Estonian, Lithuanians and a Dutch.