Šiauliai

On our way out of Kaunas we stopped to visit the Ninth Fort museum, on the outskirts of the city. At the end of the 19th century Kaunas, then part of the Russian Empire, was fortified to protect the empire’s western border. Nine forts were constructed, with the Ninth Fort being completed on the eve … Read more

Kaunas

Around 25 km to the south west of Vilnius, there’s a town called Trakai which is surrounded by lakes. We’d seen some photos of a medieval castle on an island in one of the lakes, so we stopped by to check it out. The castle is built of red bricks, rather like the one at … Read more

Vilnius Part Two

On our travels behind what was the Iron Curtain, there have been regular reminders of the oppressive totalitarian Nazi and Soviet regimes which once held sway here. We’ve visited museums in Berlin, Leipzig, Pivka, Sofia, Budapest, Dresden, Warsaw and Gdańsk, with each one giving a different take on the events of the 20th century, and … Read more

Vilnius Part One

Lithuania is another new country for us both, the 17th country we’ve visited on this trip, and it’s a country neither of us knew very much about. Reading the blurb in our guide books, it’s had a long and turbulent history, though the modern Lithuanian state is only 100 years old. Our first full day … Read more