Nocturnal Sight-Seeing

After a lazy afternoon drinking coffee and writing poetry, we suddenly felt guilty and got a taxi to the Old Town.  By night, the buildings down Aušros Vartų gatve to the Gates of Dawn were pretty spectacular: the Basilian Gate and Church of the Holy Trinity, the Church of the Holy Spirit (complete with a priest walking by the wall in the darkness) and St. Theresa's.  We found a great place for dinner - Restoranas Felicie, featuring a jazz pianist (Nick was jealous).  After dinner, we strolled down to the Town Hall Square.

The Basilian Gate

Frank Zappa Statue

Why???  Why not???

Friday in Vilnius

Today we visited the Museum of Genocide, which incorporates the basement where the KGB tortured and shot dissidents.  There's really nothing I can say.  We also tried to visit the Catastrophe Museum (Nazis) but it, the synagogue and the other branches of the Jewish Museum were closed.

Lithuanian Reflections

It was a stunning day and we owe so much to the Ragulskis' generosity.  Talking to real Lithuanians about Lithuania and seeing something other than the main tourist sights makes a big difference in getting a feel for the country.  The Lithuanian empire used to stretch from the Baltic to the Black Sea; in later periods, the country was menaced by the Nazis and the Soviets.  Now, membership of the EU seems a really positive thing - as Minvydas said, 'what can happen to us now?'

Kaunas Old Town

Back with Nick and Minvydas, we visited the Town Hall Square and the Cathedral, St. George's Church and Vytautas Church and - out of town - the Ninth Fort where a memorial commemorates the 'victims of fascism' taken there (some from Munich) and shot.  Nick pointed out that the dead represented by this memorial amount to half-a-percent of the Holocaust.

Čiurlionis

While Nick gave his paper at KUT, I visited the Synagogue (Jewish population in Kaunas = 180) and the M. K. Čiurlionis Museum with Tautvydas Ragulskis.  I was expecting Lithuanian pastoral - forget it.  The art of Čiurlionis (1875-1911) is mystical, thoughtful, detailed, symbolist, wondrously coloured in, firstly, blues and turquoises, and, later, pinks and golds.  His motifs are the crowned king, the angel, flowing rays of light, crowds on roads, tiny flowers and butterflies.  Čiurlionis believed that music and art complimented each other and, after viewing the pictures, Tautvydas and I sat in the Music Hall and listened to his composition 'Forests', in which I seemed to hear the lime-greens, dark-greens and yellows of leaves and trees.  My favourites among his pictures were Rex (1909), Forest and the cycle The Creation of the World.

From The Creation of the World

Check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikalojus_Konstantinas_Čiurlionis
http://ciurlionis.licejus.lt/index_en.html
http://www.muziejai.lt/Kaunas/ciurlionio_muziejus.en.htm

Kaunas

And on to Kaunas.  We stopped at the Church of the Resurrection, a modern building with a stunning altar-piece of the Hill of Crosses.  Quick lunch in the Akropolis Shopping Mall (one of the largest in the Baltics), which features a skating-rink and bowling alley.

Trakai

The island castle at Trakai is probably Lithuania's best-known monument.  We loved the lake location, the old steam boat, the castle museum.  Fascinatingly, the Lithuanian ruler Vytautas brought people from the Crimea, the Karaim, to guard the castle.  The Karaim, who are still in Trakai today, follow a Judic religion based on the Old Testament and speak a Turkic language.  We saw their low, colourful wooden houses.  Another group in Trakai were the Tatars.  Minvydas suggested we try kibinai - a Tatar delicacy - which we did in a restaurant by the lake.  The kibinai turned out to be not unlike Cornish pasties.
There are lots of amber shops around Trakai.  Minvydas told us the legend is that a maiden who lived in an amber palace under the sea one day rose to the surface and met the god of thunder, Perkunas.  When they kissed, the amber palace broke into fragments, providing the Baltic's rich source of amber.

An Amazing Day

I'm just going to quote our itinerary for yesterday, arranged by Prof. Minvydas Ragulskis of the Kaunas University of Technology:
9 Pick-up.  Meet with Vice-Rector of KUT at Ratonda Hotel, Vilnius
10 Arrival Trakai.  Visit to castle.
11.30 Leave Trakai.
12.30 Arrive Kaunas - lunch.
13.30 Sight-seeing in Kaunas centre.
14 Nick gives talk at KUT.  With Tautvydas Ragulskis, Kate visits synagogue and M.K. Čiurlionis Museum.
16.16 All together again.  Sight-seeing in Old Town.
17 Visit to the Ninth Fort and Holocaust memorial.
18 Dinner just outside Kaunas.
19 Leave Kaunas.
20.30 Arrive back at Hotel.

But that doesn't do justice to a totally memorable day...