{"id":1603,"date":"2013-01-17T11:59:45","date_gmt":"2013-01-17T10:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1603"},"modified":"2013-01-17T12:00:17","modified_gmt":"2013-01-17T11:00:17","slug":"baltic-trip-part-5-vilnius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/1603\/","title":{"rendered":"Baltic Trip Part 5 – Vilnius"},"content":{"rendered":"

To travel from Riga to Vilnius I once again booked a seat on the Lux Express bus, costing me 23 Euros and taking four and a half hours. \u00a0The bus was identical to the one which carried me from Tallinn to Riga, and once again the atmosphere, for the first hour or two, was not tranquil. \u00a0Some utter penis was on the bus in the form of a middle-aged man who looked every inch the stereotypical Jewish guy who still lives with his mum. \u00a0He was bald, had milk-bottle glasses, and was wearing Ugg boots with his jeans tucked into them. \u00a0If he wasn’t still a virgin then I’m the Queen of Sheba. \u00a0Anyway, no sooner had we set off when he made a series of long phone calls, some personal and some work related, during which he bellowed in Russian at the top of his voice. \u00a0You couldn’t hear yourself think, and I was unfortunate enough to be sat opposite him. \u00a0This went on for well over an hour, him treating the bus like his office and yelling down the phone without an iota of consideration for anyone else. \u00a0The only other passenger at the rear half of the bus (in the first class section) was a Swedish lady who didn’t seem bothered, or was too polite to show it. \u00a0I put up with it for about forty five minutes before I gathered my stuff and stomped off to the back of the bus and as far away as I could get in lieu of punching him in the side of his fucking head. \u00a0Once I couldn’t hear him so much, I calmed down and enjoyed the rest of the journey.<\/p>\n

As with the last bus ride there wasn’t much to see, and again the most interesting thing was whizzing past the old border control buildings and checkpoints as we crossed into Lithuania. \u00a0It was dark by the time we reached the outskirts of Vilnius, and we passed one or two giant shopping centres before the coach pulled up in a sizeable bus station and we all got out. \u00a0It took a few minutes to find a cash machine (Lithuania has its own currency as well, Litas, which are about 3.45 to the Euro) and then another few to find the nearby taxi stand, during which time I was joined by the Swedish lady from the bus who was as unfamiliar with the place as I was. \u00a0I jumped in a taxi, and asked what language the driver spoke. \u00a0It turned out he preferred Russian, which apparently is pretty common for taxi drivers in Vilnius, with a lot of them coming from Belarus. \u00a0So off we went to the Novotel situated just on the edge of the old town, but on the other side from the bus station. \u00a0it was about 5pm, and for the first time since I’d left St. Petersburg I saw traffic, and we were stuck in it. \u00a0Fortunately, my driver must have learned his trade in 1990s Russia because he mounted pavements, jumped lights, and went the wrong way down streets, huffing and puffing and swearing in Russian. \u00a0It was all very nostalgic. \u00a0Even with the traffic (which, to be honest, wasn’t a patch on traffic you’d find anywhere else) we got there in about 30 minutes, and I went to check in. \u00a0Thanks to several lengthy business trips and the Accor hotel group, by virtue of their being French, being the preferred hotel chain of my employer I hold Platinum membership at the Novotel which means I am likely to get an upgraded room if I ask for one. \u00a0So I did and I got it, and damned nice it was too!<\/p>\n

My room overlooked a large square boxed in by official-looking buildings, and beyond to a reasonably sized city which had several modern office towers and other modern buildings, with a row of small hills in the background.<\/p>\n

\"Vilnius<\/a>Looking out of the window and driving from the bus station, I got the impression that Vilnius was much larger and more modern than Riga, although it turns out that Riga has the larger population. \u00a0Nevertheless, Vilnius looks and feels more like a medium sized metropolis of the sort you can find anywhere in Europe. \u00a0Indeed, it didn’t feel uniquely Baltic in the way Tallinn or Riga did, and seemed more mainstream European. \u00a0All the usual retail outlets were there, including a Marks & Spencer, and it looked as though investment was not as limited to Scandinavians and Finns. \u00a0Whereas Tallinn was a small medieval city, and Riga was an industrial city with a strong bar, club, and backpacker scene, it was harder to pin any particular label on Vilnius. \u00a0As I say, it was more like a mainstream European town, and you’d have to look pretty hard to find any evidence the Soviets were ever there. \u00a0Admittedly I didn’t explore much outside the old town and the area immediately north of it where my hotel was located, so maybe I missed something. \u00a0But what it did have in common with the other Baltic States was that it was clean, organised, cheap, and safe and a very pleasant place to spend a few days. \u00a0It was also bloody freezing.<\/p>\n

It had occured to me that I hadn’t really gone out and enjoyed myself (meaning, get blind drunk) since I left St. Petersburg, tending to hang around quiet-ish bars and strike up conversations. \u00a0So when I saw Vilnius had a hustle and bustle about it which I hadn’t seen in Tallinn or Riga, I decided it was high time I checked out a club or two. \u00a0Sitting in my hotel room and skimming the internet, I discovered a club called Tamsta<\/a> on the other side of the old town which is a dedicated live music venue and came well recommended. \u00a0There are usually established bands playing at the weekends, but Wednesdays was apparently an open mic night, so I thought I’d go down and check out the local amateur musicians. \u00a0As you may have gathered from my last night in Tallinn, I like this kind of thing. \u00a0To get there I had to walk about 25 minutes through the old town, keeping an eye on the GPS to navigate the narrow streets.<\/p>\n

The old town of Vilnius is nice, lots of narrow streets giving onto squares with churches, an old university, or the town hall.<\/p>\n

\"Vilnius<\/a>It was not as quaint as the old towns of Tallinn and Riga, and modern buildings had crept in to a much greater extent, although in a tasteful manner (with some exceptions).\u00a0 There was plenty of snow lying around, and often I had to walk in the road as the pavements were either too narrow or blocked altogether. \u00a0By the time I went out, the traffic had mostly died down, but there were still noticeably more cars than I’d seen in the other cities. \u00a0I was feeling hungry, and so when I happened to pass by a restaurant called Meat Lovers, I decided to give it a try. \u00a0It turns out this place is fairly well known, and it was pretty good. \u00a0It was almost full, but I persuaded the waitress to allow me to take one of the reserved tables on the condition I was out within an hour. \u00a0The menu was on a chalk board on one of the walls and judging by its contents, the place was well named. \u00a0I ordered a huge burger of some sort and a large local beer. \u00a0The other patrons were, in general, young, attractive, and having fun.<\/p>\n

Once fed, I walked across the town hall square and along a very narrow street until, after a bit of looking around, I found the place I was after. \u00a0I went inside and paid a tough looking Russian the equivalent of 5 Euros to go inside, and put my coat into the cloakroom. \u00a0Finally, I had found a venue with a cloakroom (of sorts). \u00a0This was one of only two I saw on my whole trip, both of them in Vilnius. \u00a0I continued up some stairs and entered into a purpose-built venue with a stage at one end, a bar running down one wall, lots of chairs and tables in the middle, and a veranda running around two sides. \u00a0I headed for the bar. \u00a0I asked the barman, in English, to pick a language in which I’d address him from thereon. \u00a0He laughed, and said “English, of course.” \u00a0Like Latvia, it appears the only people who speak Russian in Lithuania are old or have a Russian parent. \u00a0I found that even my attempting to speak it didn’t go down too well on occasion. \u00a0So I parked myself at the bar with a drink and waited for the performance. \u00a0It was obvious from early on that this wouldn’t be an open mic night as there was a full set of equipment on stage and the place was filling up rapidly.<\/p>\n

On the hour, whichever one it was, the curtain was whipped back and a band consisting of middle-aged men launched into some serious rock music to huge cheers from the crowd. \u00a0I joined in just for the hell of it. \u00a0They belted out a decent rock song, sung in Lithuanian, and went straight into the next one without pausing for breath. \u00a0When they stopped to let their front man address the crowd, he did so in Lithuanian, and as such I had not the faintest idea what was being said. \u00a0But the music was good, the sort of 80s rock you’d hear the Russian bands such as Mashina Vremeni or DDT play in their early days (although probably not as good). \u00a0I noticed the crowd was either folk in their 50s or people in their 20s, with a generation in the middle missed out. \u00a0I spent the first set trying to work out if this band was playing its own stuff, because everyone seemed to know the lyrics and was singing along enthusiastically, yet the crowd and venue seemed too small for a famous band.<\/p>\n

The answer was supplied between the sets by a chap who I’d heard speaking English at the bar earlier, and so to whom I put the question. \u00a0It turned out the band was Poliarizuoti Stiklai (tr. Polarised Glasses) who made it pretty big in Lithuania in the 1980s before tailing off thereafter, but apparently still draw a reasonable following from people who were (presumably) young, drinking, and getting laid during their\u00a0heyday. \u00a0That certainly explained the age of the crowd (the younger lot were probably those who had grown up listening to their dad’s records). \u00a0One of their biggest hits, which they played twice for us that night, is in the clip below.<\/p>\n