Travelers Digest 2006 Summer Review
of Lithuania After reluctantly leaving the inspiring country of Iceland the 4th of
May, we boarded a plane for one of our favorite European city's,
Amsterdam and
an 8 day visit with our old friend John, owner of the
Luxury Apartments on
Reestraat St. I have always enjoyed my time spent with the friendly, educated
and attractively fit people of this city and looked forward to our short stay.
Dakota and I wandered the streets both day and night taking in the best
sights and sounds, and the endless string of side-walk cafes, a must for
refreshing the palette during our immensely long walks. The parks and canals
were always a treat, but personally, I liked eyeing the crowds of window
shoppers in the famous Red Light district as what seemed like an endless string
of sparsely clad girls waved from the large windows of their rooms. While there
were many fairly attractive women, most were fat, gross and extremely ugly, but
even they appeared to have many foreign men lined up for a few minutes of quite
expensive entertainment. 50 + Euros for 15 minutes of physical manipulation on a
human assembly line with an unemotional female robot was not for this cowboy...but
to each their own...
During our stay I did notice the slight increase in the price of dining,
beverages and most especially lodging. John had provided us with one of his finest
apartments for 8 days, but was booked with other guests afterwards, and so on our
9th morning we sought lodging elsewhere. After calling, searching the web
and strolling the streets for several hours the day before we could not find a
hotel providing even the barest of basics, under 100 Euros a night. Running out
of options we finally settled on a poorly ran back-packers hotel near the train
station. The hotel seemed to cater to wayward groups of drunks and in that
regard their rooms were hastily thrown
together with nothing more than a few small, stiff beds in the smallest of
spaces. Not much for $90 a night. The day of our arrival they didn't have any double rooms so we had to
pay for a 4 person room with no other furniture other than 4 small beds. The bathroom
was down the hall and never had any toilet paper.
It was only mid May, but the
weather was unexpectedly hot and of course the room had no air-conditioning or
fans. Four long hot nights of sweating was inevitable, as the room had 2 windows,
but only one opened and that was to the busy street 3 floors below. Our choices
were simple...either open the window for some air and endless disruption of
street noise or close the window and
literally suffocate. I choose to stuff my ears with tissues and left the window
partially opened. On the 16th of May we were
more than glad to depart for our next destination,
Vilnius,
Lithuania. We had never visited this Balkan country, but had heard
many good things...especially in regard to its immense population of gorgeous
women. Ah' the pleasures of the single-life!
Vilnius, Lithuania
Our flight landed in the capital city of Vilnius at 1: PM on the
16th of June. Grabbing our bags we quickly strolled through the relaxed
immigration and hopped a taxi for the 15 minute ride to our pre-booked
accommodation The Congress Hotel. It was listed
as a 4 star hotel which was located on the
Neris river that flowed throughout the city. We
selected it as it was within walking distance of the old city center...the
beating heart of Vilnius. It was a very hot morning and after checking in we
decided to take a brief nap and flopped down in the inviting double beds.
The hotel's terrible location, directly facing the busiest street in the
city, was barraged from the noise of an endless stream of cars, trucks and
blasting horns. It was intolerable and as in most areas of this part of the
world even the best hotels don't have air-conditioning, or fans. We again
faced the same dilemma....sweat or stuff our ears with toilet paper. We
chose neither and went for a 4 hour stroll around the city.
Walking around the perimeter of the city center we were
not impressed, as Vilnius seemed no different from other previously Soviet
controlled regions. It simply lacked any real personality. It had been
designed and rebuilt after world war two by the unimaginative architects
of the communist regime. It was crowded with square buildings, large
treeless squares and meandering streets that changed directions
constantly, making it hard to navigate. This was our first concept of
Vilnius, but would change once we discovered the old city center the next
day. We endured the noise, the heat and the inflated price of the Congress
for the first night, but quickly booked another, more central hotel the
next morning. We took a taxi to The Senatorial Hotel
& we were impressed with the quite
large suite with a separate bedroom, living room and nice bathroom, but
again, to my disappointed, but not surprise, the rooms were not
air-conditioned. Sleeping in the cold night air of Iceland had definitely
spoilt us. It was also built across the street from a massive and quite
stunning Catholic Cathedral, but my appreciation of the church would soon
change when early the next morning we soon realized the consequences when
our sleep was shattered at 6: AM. I had no idea that it was Sunday and
personally didn't care. All I knew was we paid good money to
sleep...undisturbed. That was not an option as the giant bells maintained
a steady chorus of clashing "bongs" for hours...exactly why I prefer the
deserts and jungles...no people...no noise! My most compelling thought
was "When will some global entrepreneur buy the worlds churches and
convert them to strip clubs?" Hey' a man can dream can't he?
Two days and two hotels, but hopefully our suffrage would end as
we were due to move into a truly private 2 bedroom apartment later that
day. The fully equipped luxury apartment was provided by the
Vilnius Apartment Rentals. This choice, as we
soon discovered, would make our remaining stay in the city most enjoyable.
Hotels here, as in most cities, just can't compare to having your own
apartment, and remarkably the company's apartments were priced quite
comparably. Privacy, lots of space and a full kitchen is an excellent
alternate in saving money and for whipping up some of your own favorite
beverages & dishes. For us it was mostly Corn Flakes and frozen Pizzas
with lots of bottled juices and freshly brewed coffee & tea. We did dine
out at least once a day during our long walks and the price of doing
so was quite inexpensive and gave us amble opportunity to mingle and
explore the city's old town. Lithuania is in fact is one of the least
expensive regions in E. Europe. A real bargain compared to Budapest or
Prague. Also in it's favor, Vilnius and the country of Lithuania are
blazingly adorned with an endless supply of absolutely gorgeous and
sexually attired women. Their English is limited so eye contact and
personal charisma is crucial and having slightly longer hair is also
beneficial, as all the local men appear to be cloned copies of each other
with very short hair and overly tight clothes. Not appealing to say the
least. Being casual and exhibiting a vividly carefree personality is a
crucial asset in most things in life and especially in the pursuit of
romance. Women do love to be entertained and simply adore a man with
confidence, charisma and humor...so all you guys out there... lighten
up!!!
Our time in the city center was spent enjoying the large parks, the
sidewalk cafes, numerous street performers and the general hospitality
of the locals. It was one of the most relaxing cities I had visited in a
long time. Beside the lack of air-conditioned hotels, the street noise
and church bells the only other grip I had was in regard to the poorly
trained and quite corrupt highway police. On almost every occasion while
driving outside the city of Vilnius and in other regions of the country
we ran across numerous...Speed Traps. It seemed not to matter whether we
were speeding or not as we were consistently stopped by the police, and
around Vilnius it was always the same two policemen, but they all had
the same agenda...harassing people for a pay off. A definite issue that
needs attending to by the local politicians. The police demanded that I
sat in the back seat of their car where they would attempt to intimidate
me into paying them a bribe. Even in their poor English, if spoken at
all, my facial and body expressions quickly informed them that as a
world traveler I was quite savvy in dealing with these matters and made
it quiet clear that I would not give them any money whatsoever. The
words Mayor and Police Chief obviously had some meaning as after a
few moments of silence, and some brief chat in their native language,
they quickly handed back my papers and let us go. This same scenario was
repeated at least 6 times while driving in Lithuania, but it was not to
dampen our spirits, as we continued to enjoy our time spent exploring
the country.
Le Meridien Villon Resort
After spending 9 days directly in the old town center of Vilnius we chose to stay at a stunningly beautiful resort,
Le Meridien Villon,
which was graciously set between two small lakes around 20 km outside
of town. The large hotel resort provided every possible amenity, tennis, spa,
indoor pool, gym, basketball court, two restaurants, a pub, masseuses and an
outdoor restaurant on the bigger of the two lakes. The luxury retreat is just one of
many bearing the Le Meridien name throughout the world's prime tourism locations and like
the others provide the absolute finest in style and comfort. The resort easily
meets and exceeds the expectations for a family retreat, a romantic getaway or a
business convention. Their main restaurant serves a wide variety of excellently
prepared cuisine and in the morning they serve a full gourmet breakfast
in a large dining room with ample numbers of catering staff in making sure
the meal is both fulfilling and an enjoyable start to the day. From the moment
we entered their adorned lounge to when we walked into our stylish and quite
large suite we knew we had made the right choice. After each day of leisure
spent relaxing in their heated pool, an occasional full body massage, a
variety of beverages and chef prepared dishes, we would stroll at sunset along
the shores of the lake and savor some quiet time with a cold drink at their dock
cafe. The days and nights spent at this excellent resort provided luxurious
comfort and total physical rejuvenation.
We have nothing but good words to describe this resort and both Travelers
Digest and I, personally, highly recommend this full service resort in the most
beautiful and welcoming city of Vilnius, Lithuania.
La Meriden Villon Resort In Vilnius, Lithuania is selected as our
Choice Hotel Resort and we welcome them to our
global family of exquisite hotels.
On the 29th of June we left Lithuania and drove across the border into Latvia.
We looked forward to our tour of their capital, Riga and in beginning yet
another adventure in our global journeys..
Visas: Lithuania requires visas from most
nationalities except citizens of the Baltic states, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland,
Italy, Switzerland, the UK and the US. Health risks: None
