Lithuania - Klaipeda

The itinerary says we stop at the charming fishing village of Nida, just after the border. I think that considering the time is about 10.30pm, it is decided to give it a miss, which is a pity because with hindsight I recon that this was going to be our brush with Lithuania as Klaipeda is described by the tour manager later as "just a transit stop on the way to Latvia" - so basically this tour misses out Lithuania - not a very good tour of the Baltic States if it effectively misses one out.

At 11.10pm the bus approaches the ferry that is to take us on the 5 minute crossing to Klaipeda. The bus is unable to get on the ferry, so we all go as foot passengers and the bus will follow on the next ferry. On the other side (Klaipeda) we all have to walk the 300 or 400m to the hotel where we arrive at about 11.45pm. We are all immediately ferried (excuse the pun) to the restaurant for dinner (honest!) or should that be a midnight feast.

After dinner, the keys were handed out - each key fastened to an enormous limp of scrap metal so it would impossible to walk off with one of these. It is also almost impossible to open the doors using the keys. The hotel is a lot of years old but, the write up says was modernised in 1999, presumably this didn't include the locks. We fall asleep to the sounds of people swearing at the locks as they struggle to get into their room.

Having looked at the Hotel's web site at some of the refurbished rooms I can now assume with some confidence that the room we stayed in missed out on the 1999 refurbish programme.

Town Tour then depart for Latvia

The wake up call is for 7.45 for a departure at 9.15 - delayed 15 minutes because of the long day yesterday and the driver needs rest.

We've had some tiring long days so far and stayed in three hotels for the last three nights, so it was, with bleary eyes, that I wandered into the bathroom totally disoriented with no idea as to the location of the toilet - not actually remembering the layout of the bathroom from the night before - good job I wasn't desperate.

Klaipeda will be our only contact with Lithuania, so we get up and have an early breakfast then hit the town - there being no city tour here included or optional.

Klaipeda doesn't have a great deal going for it. It is pleasant, but nothing that you would call picturesque, but we've only got about an hour and a half to see bits of it so we focus on the centre.

Theatre Square seems to be THE place to go for the arty types, trendies and traders. Within the square are:

Klaipeda Theatre, where, from the balcony Hitler made a proclamation to the people in the square in 1939 - "the incorporation of Memel into Germany"
Simon Dach Fountain (after the 17 century poet who was born in Klaipeda)
A statue in the fountain of Aennchen von Tharau, the subject of a love poem originally attributed to Dach, but later to Johann Albert - No, I've not heard of him either.

The statue and fountain are not the originals - they did not survive WWII.

Well that's it for the centre apart from water front parks and gardens - the guide has a couple of other things to the north of the river, but nothing worth rushing around over.

We just made it back for the bus departure - even if Val did delay it a bit by buying a postcard. So there we are back on the road again, this time heading towards Riga, something of the order of 230 crow km away.

Hill of Many Crosses

Our new guide introduces herself and spends the next hour or so telling us about the Baltic States. She is also threatening us with playing a tape of the new national hero of Latvia, Marie N - the winner if the 2002 Eurovision Song Contest - the lack of response may have passed on the right message.

The first stop is at the Hill of Many Crosses at Siualiai, which is a hill that has many crosses on it. By many we're talking tens of thousands, probably even hundreds of thousands, because some are quite small - though some are very big.

A very small fraction of the number of crosses on in the hill which extends quite far.

The story seems to be that Russian orthodox churches was the thing of the day, and any Christian emblems/motifs/crosses were soon disposed of. One day a man, with sick child (isn't it always the case?) had a vision that he should go to this hill, defying the authorities, and "plant" a cross. On returning, his child (daughter, I think) was cured. So the hill gained some degree of notoriety and everyone came to add their cross, and so it continued.

We were given over an hour here - for a hill with some crosses on it - well as I said there were lots of crosses to see, and a church to walk up to.

Alas, all relaxation must come to an end - "Everybody back on the bus". The lack of response earlier to listening to a tape of Marie N has obviously been interpreted as no objection to it so the next forty minutes we listen.

The Lithuania/Latvia didn't arrive soon enough. This only takes about an hour and a half, then it is time for a late lunch at the Palace of Rundale, Pilsrundale, Latvia.