Caliban – Opinion and Righteous Anger

Good luck again! We awoke to a dry morning, last night’s rain having cleared up nicely, as per our wishes. We certainly can’t complain about the weather we’ve had on this trip.

It was also several degrees cooler today, which was a very pleasant change. Frankly, we’d rather walk around in 18 or 19°C than in 25°C or higher. After an uninterrupted week of the latter category, we were more than ready for cooler weather. We’re not complaining, though — it’s better than rain — but cool temperatures are more comfortable for the whole family.

The Old Town of Kaunas is quite a sleepy place. You’d think it was Sunday, not Wednesday, judging by the number of people milling about, vans making deliveries, etc.

Shops, too, confound our habituated minds. We’re accustomed to shop fronts that blare about their merchandise and their supposedly bargain prices, but retail outlets here are dimly lit affairs, almost free of advertising banners and therefore appear closed; until you try the door, that is, at which point it swings open in your hand.

Like everything else in the Baltic countries (outside of the capitals, at least), shops are understated, their staff reticent and unassuming. You have to remain conscious of this, though, or else you risk walking past everything without looking.

Via a series of churches, where tourists armed with digital cameras mingle amongst the genuflecting locals, we eventually wound up at pretty Rotušės aikštė, the heart of the old town.

After a cepelinai lunch (not for Sarah, obviously), we headed for the Aleksotas funicular railway, which turned out to not be running, although we have no idea why. This meant we had to climb the neighbouring steps to the top, so we left the buggy at the bottom and hiked to the top for splendid views over the old town rooftops.

We had more or less covered the old town at this point, so we decided to wander back down Laisvės alėja in the new town for some coffee and cake at Vero Cafe. A passing shower pelted the street outside while we sipped our drinks.

With energy and spirit replenished, we popped into the local Maxima (the Lithuanian Albert Heijn) and then wandered down Karaliaus Mindaugo prospektas to the very large Akropolis shopping-centre (or mall, if you must). I was surprised by the variety of shops and goods available. It’s definitely one of the better shopping-centres I’ve seen outside of Dubai.

Sarah bought Eloïse a skipping-rope and, for herself, a book to read on the ferry this weekend. I bought a couple more CDs and then played a game of air-hockey with Eloïse.

Dinner rounded out the day, this time at Presto, but was nothing special. We weren’t in the mood for anything too drawn-out, anyway.

Tomorrow, we head north to Šiauliai.

Šiauliai will be our final overnight stay in Lithuania, which coincidentally makes it our last night in the Baltic countries.

My laptop remains functional, but probably only because I have continued to suspend it each time we hit the road, rather than shut it down. It’s not just the device I use to blog; it also provides us with evening entertainment once the children have gone to sleep. We’ve been using it for five and a half weeks now to watch the pile of DVDs we brought with us. I estimated the amount just right. We’ve got just barely enough to see out the rest of the trip.

The day started, once again, with a visit to Aqva Park. We were standing in front of the turnstiles, champing at the bit, as the doors opened at 10:00.

I wasted no time in making for a couple of the slides we didn’t get to yesterday. With names like Ekstremalus and Adrenalinas, you don’t have to speak fluent Lithuanian to get an idea of what you’re in for. Indeed, both rides were categorised labai ekstremelus, which means ‘very extreme’.

In the spirit of ‘some things just have to be done’, I walked up the six flights of steps to Ekstremalus and started to clamber into the tunnel with some trepidation, caused chiefly by knowing that I can’t swim a stroke.

Well, the ride was truly exhilarating and recalled my experience on the Jumeriah Sceirah at Wild Wadi in Dubai a couple of years ago. That ride takes you down a 33 m descent at 80 kmh, whereas the Ekstremalus is 140 m at 50 kmh. Which is better depends on whether you prefer your terror fleeting and intense or more protracted, but less severe.

In either case, the moment quickly arrives, as you’re rocketing down the chute, that you wonder whether you wouldn’t have been better off giving in to the pangs of cowardice that accosted you moments earlier. Too late, though. Total surrender to your fate is the immediate and only way forward, since there’s absolutely nothing you can do to slow down, steer or alter your descent in any way.

As I accelerated along the chute, the water that was aiding my descent began to build up around my face under the force of my passage, so I had to shut my eyes, hold my breath and simply brace for impact at the bottom.

Sooner, rather than later, that impact comes. The woman manning the entrance to the slide had told me to cup my hands over my nuts on the way down. When I hit the water at the end of the slide, I had raised my left hand slightly for some reason, and the wisdom of her advice became abundantly clear.

The splash from hitting the end of the run was like a mild kick in the wedding tackle, in my case exclusively to the left testicle. Thank heavens for small mercies. Note to self for future reference: do not slam one’s crown jewels into water at 50 kmh.

I recovered quickly, though, and was soon persuading Sarah to go on the slide, too. This, she duly did, making me very proud.

Sarah then went off for a massage (lucky cow), while I stayed in the water to look after the children. After close to an hour, Lukie decided that now was the perfect moment to let rip in his swimming trunks. A murky, tell-tale ochre was seen to ooze from the elasticated leg of his trunks.

Picture me now, lifting him up, as trickles and streaks of what is quite unmistakably shite run down my forearms towards my elbows. Needless to say, the three of us beat a hasty retreat to the changing rooms.

The day was ticking away and we needed to be on our way, so we quickly checked out and headed for Kaunas. Our sat-nav was all but useless, unaware of the existence of any roads south of Vilnius. It would have had us drive via Poland, arriving at 17:00.

We made good time, getting to Kaunas at about 14:15. We checked into our hotel and then immediately headed out for lunch at Morkų Šėlsmas.

I can’t recommend Morkų Šėlsmas enough. Situated just off the massive, pedestrianised avenue of Laisvės Alėja, Morkų Šėlsmas serves up delicious vegan food in a society more renowned for eating pigs’ ears than carrot-based dishes (morka means ‘carrot’) and vegetable curry. The food was delicious and we were positively dilatory about eating it. I think this meal ranks amongst Sarah’s favourites of the whole trip.

With our bellies full, we ventured back onto Laisvės Alėja and continued to wander around the new town area. It was quite muggy and the sky was gradually turning grey.

Dinner was at Senieji Rūsiai on Vilniaus gatvé, where we had to retreat from the terrace to the cellar when it finally began to rain. This is the first rain we’ve seen in over a week; since Tartu, in fact.

Tomorrow, we’ll head into the old town and explore that area. Hopefully, it will be drier by then.

Fulfilling our promise to Eloïse, the first thing we did today after breakfast was go to Aqva Park, where we had the greatest of fun. Both children loved it and frolicked for several hours in the warm water. Everything’s indoors, too, so there’s no need for sunscreen lotion.

For Mama and Papa, there were the Srautas and Bermudai water slides, the latter a 212 metre chute through (mostly) pitch darkness. Those were great.

We had so much fun that we’ll probably go back tomorrow morning before we leave for our next destination. Entrance to the park is included in our hotel rate, which is a fantastic deal, because the park alone is quite expensive.

The hotel itself is a relic from Soviet times. The breakfast didn’t appeal to any of us very much, but the mostly Lithuanian and Polish clientele seemed to lap it up. Cheese curd and jam was what I eventually opted for, the ‘milkiness sausages’ failing to stir my appetite.

After lunch, we drove a few kilometres up the road to Grūtas for Grūto Parkas, a sculpture park containing Soviet-era sculptures of the former USSR’s dubious icons.

These concrete obelisks used to (dis)grace the squares and parks of Lithuania, until the country regained its independence and decided that it’d really rather not have the forebears of the oppression leering at them from prominent urban positions. Unsurprisingly, they tore them down and many of them ended up in this petrified graveyard monument.

The park makes a big hubbub about being the only one of its kind, but that’s testing the elasticity of the truth, if you ask me. Grūto Parkas has some unique aspects, but the notion of a Soviet-era sculpture park isn’t a new one. Indeed, we visited the original Memento Park (a.k.a. Szobor Park) in Budapest back in 2006.

Grūto Parkas was fun, but also hugely overpriced at 20 Lt. It was also swarming with mosquitoes in a couple of areas. The bastards savaged me without mercy.

Still, they also have a Soviet-era children’s playground, called Lunapark, which Eloïse enjoyed. It’s a strange collection, invoking feelings of being Lilliputian, such was the size of the various bits of apparatus.

Tomorrow, we break with the southerly pattern of the last ten or so days and head north to Lithuania’s second city, Kaunas, for a couple of nights.

Here we are in Druskininkai at the start of week six. Any further south and we’d be in Belarus, as the border is literally just a few minutes’ drive south of here. Even as we were heading out of Vilnius this morning, the signs for Minsk started to appear; but, as is so often the case, we have neither the time nor the visas to go in that direction.

We’re not a million miles from Poland now, either. In fact, Poland lies just 55 km west of here; another country in which I haven’t yet set foot. We had hoped to drive back across Poland and Germany at the end of this trip, but we realised a couple of weeks ago that time constraints aren’t going to allow us to make a land crossing of that length. Poland will live to grace my itinerary another year.

Instead, we’re going to work our way back to Klaipėda and catch the ferry back to Kiel in Germany, precisely the reverse of our outbound journey. That’s a few days away yet, though, so we’re going to get to see a couple more places in Lithuania that otherwise wouldn’t have been along the route.

Speaking of routes, today’s saw us detour via Trakai.

Trakai has immediately earned itself a place on our list of highlights of this trip. Its castle, the Trakų salos pilis (Trakai Island Castle), could hardly be more picturesque. Its setting on an island in Lake Galvė is the stuff of picture postcards and chocolate boxes, which so often surpass the real thing.

Today, though, couldn’t have been more idyllic. Another heavenly sunny day, a perfect 25°C with blue skies stretching to the horizon, broken only by a few wispy clouds, seeking to render an immaculately photogenic scene all the more interesting by introducing a tiny, serene hint of imperfection.

I forgot one detail: the mobs of tourists. Sure enough, we’re not the only people who appreciate the kind of scene that makes poets and watercolour artists sigh and reach for their pens. And it was Sunday, so the effect was the square of what it would have been on a weekday. Most of the people are day-tripping residents from Vilnius, getting out of the city at the weekend, but there are Poles, Germans and other nationalities in smaller numbers, too.

Luckily, we arrived relatively early, at about 11:15, and beat most of the crowds. We even managed to drive straight into a parking spot, which later on becomes no mean feat; believe me.

The castle was pretty good inside, but the exhibits couldn’t compare to the view of the castle itself. However, I particularly enjoyed the collection of tobacco pipes on display.

Trakai is more than just its castle, though. The town also has a Karaim community, a small Turkic-speaking religious and ethnic group that has its origins in Crimea. There are only a few hundred of them left now, but this town is one of their strongholds. Their kenesa (place of worship) is located on the town’s main street, at Karaimų gatvé 30. There’s also an ethnographic centre, but we didn’t have time to visit it.

Much hoopla is made of the Karaim character of Trakai. One element of this is the food, with restaurants all along the river’s edge serving up kibinai, which are rather like small Cornish pasties. It’s very much de rigeur to have them for lunch, so we put our best ovine foot forward and ordered a batch of them at Kibininė, which is supposedly the place to eat them. They didn’t disappoint.

After lunch, we went around Lake Galvė on a pedalo, which Eloïse got a real kick out of. I had her sit on my lap, which gave her enough extra leg length to do some of the pedalling. I was surprised just how much fun it was to water-bike around the castle.

Finally, once we were back on land, we had a quick wander through the town to look at the colourful houses that line both sides of Karaimų gatvé.

We still had a couple of hours’ worth of driving ahead of us, so we returned to the car and sped on to Druskininkai.

Druskininkai is a nineteenth century spa resort. We haven’t had a chance for a good look around yet, but the main attraction these days isn’t the town itself or taking the (probably foul-tasting) waters; it’s the Aqva Park. There are also many spa centres, including several Soviet-era dinosaur sanatoriums, where one can order up a chocolate massage and other odd pastimes.

As for us, we’re hitting the water park first thing after breakfast tomorrow, as entry is included in the price of our hotel accommodation.

Dinner this evening deserves a mention, too. It was courtesy of Sicilia, a local pizzeria. Not only was the pizza very good, the dessert was especially delicious. Highly recommended.

A good source for English-language news in this region of the world is the Baltic Times.

I post this as much to aid my ailing memory as for anyone else’s interest.