Hey y’all, since the last time I posted an update I have traveled from Druskininkai, Lithuania to the capital city of Vilnius and spent 3 days there and then made my way to Kaunas (Lithuania’s second biggest city) for one night.

On Friday, I checked out of my apartment in Druskininkai and went downtown to find a bite to eat. I found a place that was serving traditional Lithuanian food and thankfully had a picture menu. After a nice lunch, I got on the road to Vilnius, with a short detour through the city of Alytus. Alytus turned out to be a very sleepy place with little to see.

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After finding little to photograph in Alytus, I continued on the road for the short ride to Vilnius, where I had a room booked for the next three nights. On the way, I stopped at a famous castle on an island in a town called Trakai to check it out and get a few photos.

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After Trakai, it wasn’t long until I hit the Vilnius city limits. I had to fight some heavy traffic upon getting into the city. My next stop was to be the Paneriai memorial on the western edge of the city. Paneriai is a place where, during WW2, thousands (roughly 100,000) of Poles, Jews, Russians and Lithuanian resistance members were murdered by the Nazis. They chose this place because there were 6 large pits already in place to be used for oil storage tanks, but the area had been overrun by the Wehrmacht before the storage tanks could be installed. So the Nazis decided to use the pits to dispose of the corpses of those they killed. It was directly on my way to Vilnius so I figured I should stop and check it out.

Walking around there by totally by myself (the place is very isolated) was starting to get pretty eery. You all might think I’m crazy but I swear to you on everything holy that this happened: suddenly, as I was taking the below picture I could hear multiple faint voices. They were quiet but seemed to be near me. There was not another person anywhere within a mile of me. I looked at the picture I took in that moment and I’ll let you be the judge of what that is at the bottom. I had seen and heard enough – I beelined back to the car and got the hell out of there. I’m not necessarily a believer in ghosts (I’m also not necessarily a non-believer) – but to hear those voices and then see that orb in the photo at the same location was enough to freak me out!

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After my possible ghost experience I got out of Paneriai and started heading into the old city and to my room. It was getting a little later in the evening and I was definitely wanting to do some busking so I stopped and had a quick gas station dinner and then made my way to my room. I was pleasantly surprised to find it right in the heart of the old town, with private parking, and very nice!

After getting checked into my room, I decided to walk around a bit and scout out a place to busk. I was pleased to find several options that looked promising and quite a few people out and about. At the city hall there was a big stage set up with bands from Ukraine playing an open air concert. I listened to that for just a bit and then went and got my gear out and set up in a spot that was just out of earshot from the big stage on a busy street I found called Plies street. I got to work right away and started to have some success right off the bat. I had several people stop by, sold two CDs, and made about 120 euros over the course of playing in that spot. Towards the end, a Russian guy came up and gave me 10 British pounds, hung around a while, and then brought me two beers from a local outdoor bar. His name was Dennis. I stopped and had the beers with him and then two of his buddies showed up and we hung out at the park and talked for a while. They wanted me to keep drinking with them, but I was wanting to save my energy for busking again the next day, so I just took them to the car for a splash of bourbon and said goodnight. All in all Friday was a great evening and my most prosperous busking endeavor of the entire trip so far.

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On Saturday, I got up and relaxed a little bit in the morning before heading out to find some traditional Lithuanian food and then head out on to the town to see the main tourist sites of the old town. The food was fairly good and I probably walked about 3 miles afterwards, going from place to place to check everything out.

Here are a few pics from my walking tour of old town Vilnius:

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After doing the tourist stuff, I came back to my room to chill out for a bit and rest up to go back out busking again Saturday night. I finally got up and went out there at about 7pm and returned to my spot from the previous day. I started out strong on the tips and was soon approached by a couple of guys that had heard me from the local outdoor bar and complimented me on my tunes. They wound up buying me a beer and I sat and talked with them for a few minutes. They turned out to be local guys named Edgar and Domas. We exchanged numbers before they departed and they told me to call them later if I got done and wanted to meet up. I told them that I would holler at them later on and then I went back to playing at my spot. At about 930pm another guy came up and threw a 10 into my guitar case and started dancing along to my singing. I played him a couple more songs while he danced and then I started feeling some raindrops. Deciding I’d better pack up my stuff, I invited the dancing man for a beer and we took my gear over and grabbed a table under the umbrella at the outdoor bar. He turned out to be from Ukraine and his name was Yurii. We had a good time talking about my visit to Ukraine in 2019 and calling my Ukrainian friend Gene to introduce them. After that I traded all my coins in for bills with the waitress and we set off to take my gear home and go meet with Edgar and Domas at a bar near where my room was.

After Yurii and I went back to my place and dropped off my gear, we met with Domas and Edgar and had several beers together at an outdoor patio bar near to my building. I had a good time shooting the shit with them and a few of their friends and Edgar was nice enough to give me some suggestions of places to visit and some places that I had planned that I should skip. We stayed there for a few drinks and eventually Yurii tapped out and the two Lithuanians took me out bar hopping on the happening streets of Vilnius on a Saturday night.

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On Sunday, I slept in and relaxed in the morning and ventured out in the late afternoon to get my one big mission for the day accomplished – laundry. There’s little I hate more than doing laundry but it’s a must when you are on the road. I was getting a little low on clean clothes, not critically low, but I felt Sunday would be the best time to get it done as I had seen all the sites I wanted to see in Vilnius, had the time to do it, and there was a little laundromat nearby. I took my stuff there and hit up a bakery for some food while my clothes were in the dryer.

I didn’t get in to very much else on Sunday besides getting the laundry done. I just walked around a bit and pretty much laid low. The crowds of Friday and Saturday were not out on Sunday and I decided busking probably wouldn’t be as worth it. So I pretty much just hung in the room and did some research for the next few days of the trip and worked on the blog Sunday night.

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On Monday morning, I checked out of my nice room and then grabbed some breakfast at a nearby cafe before hitting the road for my next destination Kaunas. It was a nice change to have some eggs and breakfast type food there. The drive to Kaunas was only a little over an hour. Before I left I took care of one little chore. I had left a shirt of mine at a room in Slovakia and the owner was nice enough to mail it back to Germany for me, so I stopped by the post office on my way out and mailed him some money to cover the postage and his hassle.

Arriving into the Kaunas area, my plan was to see a few attractions that I’d read about on the outskirts of town before heading into the old town, where the apartment I’d rented was located. The main things I wanted to see were the remnants of some fortresses that were built in the 1800’s when Kaunas was part of the Russian empire and Napoleon’s Hill.

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Arriving to my apartment, I met the owner and discussed with her the possibility of changing my reservation from two nights to one night because I’d already seen most of what I wanted to see in Kaunus and it was forecast to rain the next 3 days there. She thankfully agreed to let me cancel the reservation for a refund from booking.com and then just let me pay cash to stay one night. I set out on the town in the rain to at least see the old town sites and get some dinner.

Walking to the end of the destroyed pedestrian street, I came to another fully functioning pedestrian street running perpendicular to it. This one was extremely long with a giant church at the end. I walked the length of it and got a few pics.

Walking back towards my place, I noticed a bar with some big umbrellas out and a few people sitting despite the rain. It dawned on me that I could ask them if I could requisition an umbrella and play them a free patio show that evening. When I went in and explained who I was and what I wanted to do, they enthusiastically agreed to let me do it. And just like that I had a gig Monday night. I walked back to my part of town and got a few more pics, had some dinner at a restaurant that the owner of my apartment had recommended, and then went and got my music gear and headed over to the bar at about 8 o’clock.

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So that brings us to today – Tuesday. I’ve returned to the restaurant where I had dinner yesterday because it was so good I wanted to try something else from their menu. I had a turkey meatball dish that was fairly good, but not like the cabbage was.

I also took the extra time to finish up this post for y’all so I could get an update out. Hopefully you enjoyed reading it. I’m about to get on the road now for Klaipeda, on the Lithuanian Baltic coast. From there the plan is to hit a couple cities north along the coast and head into Latvia in a couple of days. I’ll check in again soon. Take care y’all!