Vinlius - Lithuania

Vilnius and Lithuania (sort of...)

After 10 hours on a bus we got off at the Vilnius bus terminal. It was 5am 'our time' and our continuing bus to Riga was leaving at 7am. It was a good thing that we went into the bus terminal as otherwise we wouldn't have noticed that the time had changed, we were now on eastern european time and not central, yay only a 1 hour to wait for the bus to Riga. The bus terminal was a pretty miserable place but it was 6am their time and it was all closed.

So when we went to book this epic 17 hour bus journey from Warsaw to Riga we tried to book the Lux bus but unfortunately it was sold out (wide seats, free tea and coffee, free wifi, easy to see why it was sold out), so we were stuck with the equivalent of a local public transport bus for this epic journey. This bus was still better than all of the grayhound buses I ever took across the US, this one had climate control at least. To rub salt into already numb bums, sore legs and aching backs, whilst we were waiting the hour for our connecting bus to Riga a Lux bus pulled in. Boy oh boy I so wanted to get on that bus! It looked so spacious and comfortable.

I would like to say that I saw some of Lithuania but alas no. I managed to nap/sleep on the bus in the morning on the way into Vilnius and I dozed/napped in the morning on the bus to Riga out of Vilnius. The only highlight of this part of the bus trip that I remember is the passport control check (a policeman on the side of the road stopped the bus) and our bus drivers massive nicotine addiction (at any chance he would step off the bus and light up a cigarette whether it was a 2 min or 10 min stop). So I think that this means we will return to Lithuania at some stage. I do still really want to trek out to see the 'Hill of Crosses'.