It’s a four-day weekend for me and I had wonderful plans that crashed and burned. Fortunately, how it worked out, nothing crashed and burn.
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| Cemetery garden |
Since I have access to a car for the next two weeks, I’d
hoped to make a run for the Baltic Sea and go to a castle located on a split.
The sea is only about 3-4 hours away, but you have to ferry to the split, so
that adds a couple hours; it’s not a safe trip for one driver to up and back in
a day, so I hoped to overnight somewhere.
Since Tuesday is a Lithuanian holiday as well, I guess it
booked up fast because there was nothing available on or near the split, so I
looked for nearby things. Found one, but in trying to book on Friday for
Saturday night, it turned out to be a little late, I guess. By Saturday at 10
a.m., I hadn’t gotten confirmation so I called it off and looked to other plans.
Research these days is done on the internet, so I checked
Viator with no intention of actually purchasing a trip but instead just getting
an idea of what’s out there. Lithuania is not so big, but you have to head in
the right direction.
There are a couple places that seemed really good and I
opted for what someone on Viator called “The Troy of Lithuania.” No horses,
just an archeological site about 30-40 minutes outside of Vilnius in Kernave
(Ker-NAHV-ee, I think), which seemed doable in someone else’s car. It’s a much
bigger car – full-sized SUV for a family of four – that normally are found
around Vilnius, and just getting out of the parking garage proved a challenge.
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| I walked ALL over the site in Kernave |
Other than getting utterly confused in trying to find the
right freeway – roundabouts; question as to what was considered “the second
exit” and not knowing which direction was north – I got there just find and
found parking at a cemetery.
The cemetery itself was pretty awesome; the plots had been
transformed into actual gardens with lovely flowers and plants. The landscaping
was beautiful, even for the plots for the people who had been dead for
generations. There were several people there tending gardens; I drove in
following a group of three women who hauled out dirt, rakes and loads of
begonias out of their car. They really take care of them.
After heading to the museum, I went to the site itself,
which is a huge, huge area that once encompassed five forts on the top of five
hills. There was also a flat area between the hills and a river that would have
contained tribes of people; the land had been inhabited going back to the 13th
century. It was the capital of Lithuania at one time. It was quite interesting,
but in the end, it was basically a lovely walk through a lot of grass and up
and down a lot of stairs. I did ALL the stairs, up to each of the five forts
sites and back down again. My calves are killing me today; my iPhone says I did
a total of 39 flights of stairs yesterday.
But it was wonderful to get out of town and just wander.
There weren’t many people there at all, and at one point – at the top of the
last fort, which was a bit away from everyone else – I just plopped down and
read some of my book.
As this is my only weekend in between classes, I could do it
with a clean conscience and not feel I should be concentrating on something
else; that was why doing something this weekend was so important to me. (Never
mind that everyone else I know was out of town.)
Before I took off for Kernave, I also looked for hot air
ballooning here. I know they have them because I see them outside my hotel window
on a regular basis. I looked up some companies, sent and email and immediately
got WhatsApp’d. I’d plugged in looking for Sunday but it turns out, it came out
that they had an opening for Saturday night.
So last night, after walking 25k steps (the last hour to the
balloon meeting spot), I got into a balloon for the third time in my life.
This one was smaller than the ones I’d taken in Cappadocia
and Luxor, but it was glorious, at least after I relaxed. It was far more
crowded; I think we had eight people in there; six Russian tourists, the pilot
and the guide. Everyone spoke Russian, and I learned I know absolutely balloon-type
terms in Russian, because I understood absolutely nothing. Even the abbreviated
English-language safety instructions were vague, so I was glad I’d done it
before so I kind of knew what was going on.
We sailed for about an hour, drifting over close to Trakai, the
island castle where I’d gone last week. It also had been a capital of Lithuania.
I had thought we’d fly over Old Town, but you’re sort of at the mercy of the
wind so we were off in another direction. Since I’d been to the fort and the
Hill of Three Crosses, I do feel like I’ve had a good view of Vilnius from
high, anyway. We did pass over one absolutely majestic castle/church/something.
I don’t know what it was, but it was right on a lake and beautiful.
In general, Lithuania is full of trees and lakes, which
looks lovely from the air. I really don’t know what path we took, but there
were lots of balloons this weekend, about 35. This pales in comparison to New
Mexico’s 700 or so, but it on par with Cappadocia, which has 30-40 most
mornings and evenings. Normally, Vilnius – the only European capital that has
hot air ballooning over the city – has far less than that, like 10 or so.
It was a lot of fun. My photos don’t reflect the beauty of
it; I was on the west side of the balloon and was shooting into the setting sun
lots of the time. It really was gorgeous.
As we got closer to the ground, we could wave to the people there,
many of whom were out watching the balloons go over. One little girl chased us,
waving as she ran across her yard, clearly delighted. My mind flashed to the
little girl Garland Greene (Steve Buscemi) had tea with on Con Air’s layover in
that movie. Her dog was quite excited to see us, too. It must be the things to
do in the evenings.
Since you’re sort of at the mercy of Mother Nature upon
landing, too, we wound up coming down in someone’s back yard. There’s a chase
car that finds a spot, asking permission of the owners before landing. We came
down in the vicinity of another balloon, at the house of a couple who were swimming
in their little baby lake.
Considering that the shaky plan I’d had for the weekend went
kaput on Saturday morning, I think I made quite a recovery. Today, Sunday, I am
planning on checking out an English-language church service and then walking to
the ritzy mall and just poking around. I had hoped to catch another movie but
the one that sounded palatable isn’t playing. Something with Liam Neeson is,
but as much as I like him, his movies are better viewed on cable.
One of my colleagues returns tonight and we were considering a quick day trip tomorrow, but the destination is as of yet unknown.
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