Category Archives: Travel

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Crete part 3: The Little Fun Train

Like a proper tourist I decided to go for one of the trips on The Little Fun Train. I went on one last year and enjoyed it at lot. This year I went for a trip called Hidden Treasures.

Our first stop was at a local winery in a small village called Vatolakos we tasted local wine outside an old Cretan house at the Monousakis family winery that has won european awards for their quality and taste.

Most of the trip went through the orange and olive groves, there was also avocado and pommegranades grown.

It was quite an interesting scenery we got to see on our ride with the cute little train.

After this the train drive us to a monastary on the hillside of Varipeto where we got to visit the Greek Orthodox monastary of Metamorphosis.

The monastary had quite an amazing view. And it was a very interesting place to visit.

On our way home we had a quick stop at a local farmer selling freshly squeezed orange juice!

All in all it was a great ride even if my behind has sat in better seats that those on the train.

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Crete part 2: Boat trip

When if I am spending most of the time in Crete relaxing, swimning and enjoying the sun I have done a few tourist things. Like going on a bit trip. The day I was actually going the trip was canceled due to too much wind. But on the second try the weather was on my side.

The boat went out to and around an island just outside the coast that is now a nature reserve. People are only allowed to go out there for one day of the year. The island is the home to the Kri Kri goats that are very important to the creatans.

On the boat trip we had two stops for swimning and snorkling. The first one was in a lovely little bay. The water was very lovely.

After the first stop a diver that had been with the boat came back to us from a diving trip to show us what he found in the sea.

He found a few sea cucumbers, a brittle starfish, sea urchin and some shell. He did let them safely back in to the sea after he had shown them to us.

He also found an octopus. I sat quite near when he showed it to us and much to everyone elses amusement it squirted ink all over me.

Hope you’re all enjoying your week!

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Vilnius part 4: The town

Vilnius Cathedral

The Cathedral has a spot where you can stand, spinn three times and make a wish. I found it quite lovely at dusk. The Cathedral square is the Main square og the old town. It is a key location in the city’ s public life. And they have nice places for getting a beer.

Presidential palace

Vilnius is the second largest city in the baltic states. It’s the seat of the main government institutions of Lithuania. The presidential palace is the official office and recidence of the President of Lithuania. It rates back to the 14th century and has undergone various reconstructions.

The gate of Dawn. Gateway built in the wall that surrounds Vilnius

The gate of Dawn is a city gate of Vilnius and one of the most important religious, historisk and cultural monuments. It was built between 1503 and 1522 as part of the defensive fortification of Vilnius. Of the nine city gates this is the only one left.

Rebuilding old wall outside the city gates

Neris river that separate the old part of town from the new

A cute street in the old town

Statue

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Vilnius part 3: Churches

Vilnius has a lot of churches I didn’t get photos of all of them. For the most they are Catholic churches, but there some orthodox churches today.

The Gate of Dawn, the chapel of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn, contains the painting with the same name. The legend tells that on 1702 when Vilnius was captured by the Swedish army the came to her people’s rescue

Church of St. Anne roman Catholic church. A prominent exemple of gothic styles. And it helped enable the district to be included in the UNESCO World Heritage list. There was amazing and wonderful architecture inside.

The Cathedral of Vilnius is the main Roman Catholic Cathedral of Lithuania. It’s dedicated to Saints Stanislaus and Ladislaus.

Churc of all Saints is a Baroque style church. Was built between 1620 and 1630 and was a Carmelite monastary

Church of St. Paraskeva orthodox church

Church of St. Peter and St. Paul Roman Catholic church

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Vilnius

The previous weekend I went for a long weekend in Vilnius, Lithuania to attend a friends wedding. I had a lovely time over there and got to see some of the sights the town has to offer, tasted some good food and one of the perks about going was that the weather actually acted like it was summer.

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This lucky belly was in a wall close to the 3rd hotel we stayed at!

It wasn’t a relaxing trip, there was a lot to see and do, and not to much time to do everything. But I think I managed to squeeze in quite a lot in the short while and I got to spend some time in the company of good friends.

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View from the room of our first hotel

 Vilnius was a lovely city. Getting there is usually not to difficult, but unfortunantly for us the airport in Vilnius was closed for the time we were there, so we had to fly to the city of Kaunas an hour away. This was quite a set-back and made the travel a lot more stressfull.

View from the sky bar at the first hotel

We used a car service to drive us to the airport and back, if we we hadn’t it would have been even worse.

Vilnius was a very clean city and there was a lot fewer tourists around due to the fact that the airport was closed. There was also more casinos and strip clubs around than I am used to seing in other cities I’ve been to.

Luggage handling in Kaunas airport

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Weekend again

This weekend I decided that I needed some place and quiet again so after a visit to my cousin after work on friday I got in the car and drowe in to our summer-house. The sun was shining and I had a lovely evening.

Saturday brought quite a bit of rain, but I still managed to get out to pick some blueberries. The rain was comming down in large quantities, but I still managed to do the much needed chillin. 

Sunday brougt a litle more rain in the morning and then I headed home to have an enjoyable evening with friends and catching up on blogg reading. Engaged in the wonderful event that is #sundayblogshare at big up your blog.