Vilnius

The next day we went to explore the town. It was full of old buildings and churches. We had a couple of hours to look around the city. I explored many of the churches in town but there were still many more that I didn’t get the chance to have a look at. I also spent a bit of my time in the main square listening to some musical acts on stage. They had all kinds of music playing from rock and acoustic to classical and even opera. The crowds walked my, some stopped. By the time I had to leave to catch the bus a small crowd was now watching the performances.

I’d decided to go on the optional tour to Trakai Castle that afternoon. Trakai is a small, traditional, red brick castle that sits on a small island in the middle of a lake about half an hour outside the city. The castle was originally built by one of the first kings of the region. Since that time it has been destroyed and rebuilt to what it is today. I was told that many films have been shot there including Robin Hood (which version though I’m not too sure). The whole place was very touristy although there wasn’t much to the castle itself. There were a couple of rooms which had been done up with the history of the castle and informative panels about certain sections. We had a local guide this time who took us through the castle. She was a good guide whose commentary wasn’t as dry as everyone elses. She was also the first local tour guide that liked to take questions. We hadn’t see that in any of the three countries we’d been in so far so it was a nice change.

That night I also attended the ‘optional’ dinner excursion. The tour guide described the restaurant as a ‘folk law dinner’ although there was very little folk law and the dinner wasn’t up to much either. We had our orders taken on the bus a day or so before. I decided to order the fillet of cod served on a bed of mashed potatoes and a traditional salad. In the end what I was given was fish and chips. It wasn’t a pleasant evening that I had invisaged. The staff were rude and unfriendly and the people doing the entertaining, singing and playing traditional instruments appeared bored. This carried on throughout the evening. Even with the coffee after dinner no milk was served. I asked a waiter for it who replied “in a minute" in an exasperated tone. The milk never arrived and after the reaction I received from asking the first time, I did not want to ask again. It was interesting to note that the tour guide and driver were treated differently to the paying customers with the staff being friendly and, I noted, they got milk with their coffee. We were rushed through the meal, in and out with a three-course meal plus coffee in an hour and a half. The consensus among those people on the tour said that the meal was disappointing and staff were solemn unsmiling and rude. When this information was relayed to our tour guide she replied much the same as before. That it was impossible to please everyone and that there was nothing she could do. Apparently it was even too much to listen to the issues the people had with their meal. Even though all who attended (apart from the tour guide and driver) paid 60 euros for the meal. The rest of the evening was spent in the hotel bar with the others who attended the meal. The meal was crap but afterwards was a nice way to spend the rest of the evening.