Day 55 – Traku & Vokieciu Backyards

In the morning Georgia and I toured the local backyards. Dan’s mom did that for some time and has some amazing pictures. The initial goal was to go to the Pottery Artists guild shop on the street next to the Franciscan church. The place was closed in the morning. We found innovative way to get back to our street though its backyard.

We’ve stopped at Šviežios Bandelės and got some pastries and then moved over to Coffee Inn next door on Traku to consume them with cappuccino and juice while leafing through a magazine. What a great way to start the morning!

Most of the backyards are very scenic – both renovated and dilapidated ones. Often a place that looks like complete ruin would have beautiful flower garden – with wild and garden flowers growing almost out of every crack. We found a this pretty tea shop tucked away in one of the entry ways. We also found a nice looking cafe Sauni Vietele inside a courtyard next to a church. We will check it out closer next week.

For lunch we went to soup and pierogi (here is an attempt to spell: Sultiniai ir Pierogiai) place tucked in the courtyard off Gedimino blvd. It is kind of parallels ex-Pieno Baras.

Early in the week we reserved the car from Bestcar for Saturday to go to Kaunas and to Olshevsky dacha. We usually speak with a manager called Marius and then his colleague Ivaras drops off the car. Marius told us that he will be away this weekend and his colleague will have his phone. I called his number on Friday to confirm the drop off time. Gediminas, the replacement first said the car is not available and then called back to say that it is. And Ivaras dropped it off pretty early again.

In the afternoon Dan’s mom and I went to back to the guild shop. Basically it seems like a place for starting out pottery artists to learn their craft, use studio space, and sell their masterpieces. It has some nice works but most of the other stuff are attempts to duplicate mass art sold in the souvenir shops.

Alicia came and made cold beetroot borsht. She was dismayed at the leanness of our kefir (only 2.5% of fat) and neutralized it with a package of 40% sour cream. Cholesterol gods are smiling.

Oleg and his wife came in the evening. We had a nice time.