Lithuania (12/08/2017 - 12/10/2017)

Lithuania marked the end of our Baltic road trip - we drove from Riga to Palanga then to Vilnius via Kaunas. On the way to Palanga we passed the Hill of Crosses, which seemed to be started some time in the 1830s as a sign of Lithuania's enduring Catholicism in a sea of Russian Orthodoxism.

Palanga is another sea-side resort however the city itself had a much longer history spanning different kingdoms, and empires over the centuries. It is famous for its amber, as evidenced by the fine specimens in the amber museum. It was amazing to see an actual lizard tail preserved in amber - apparently very rare.

Kaunas was a brief stop for dinner in a small town with a modest Christmas market and a long pedestrian walkway.

Vilnius is the home of the largest Christmas market in the Baltics, and while it was quite similar to the others in terms of goods sold, the sheer amount of people made it quite daunting to explore fully.


Hill of Crosses

Palanga

Kaunas

Vilnius