Day 24 - Kaunas, Lake and Trakai

In the morning Dan did his usual Saturday run and saw a portion of the treasure trove being sold. There are probably many more where this came from but the laws of the land are not very condusive to reporting. So these end up in the private collections, or out on the fleamarkets and history is lost.

On the image on the left the dog is doing pretty well.

After that we went to Kaunas. Gotta go somewhere. Did our usual walk down the Laives alley. If Vilnius would take at least 5 years to get on the road to recovery, it is questionable if that was to ever happen to Kaunas. Some establishments did not survive the winter, like Vilnius. We found a good new one, though Senamesteis Sriubas. In this heat, a cold soup is a welcome and satisfying meal. Especially the good ones that they have.

The one other thing that does not change about Kaunas is its brides. On a Saturday morning through afternoon, you are sure to find 3-4 in the old city hall squre of all kinds and levels of tackyshness. Taking the habitual pictures next to the fountain, sweaty bridesmaids, smoking best men. 

Next we went to Trakai. We were going to swim in Trakai lake but as we saw the surrounding lakes are we approached Trakai it became clear that there will not be any parking in the little town. So we pulled over near one of the surrounding lakes where two other cars were already parked.

The lake was very nice with pretty warm water and sandy bottom. The surroundings were not so much. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and apparent demise of the park rangers few people are consientious enough to clean up after themselves. There were loads of bottles, plastic bags, and other goodies all around. We all stayed in the water for about an hour and then dried up and went on to Trakai. While we were drying up, another family took a place next to us. Georgia commented that it is nice nice that they had something to eat. So they treated her to some ice-cream. Even she knows now that it is nice to be a kid.

When we arrived to Trakai we saw that we were right about parking. But Dan had a secret place that he discovered during one of our last visits - church parking on the main lake. Unfortunately main road was under contruction but he accidentally found a side street that went right into the parking lot. We were also lucky that a wedding party was getting into their cars and leaving. As we passed the church, we heard the wedding music playing inside and looked in. Another bride was coming out and had a cameraman and a photographer coming out before her. I whispered to Georgia to keep quiet. But as the best woman came out, Georgia could not contain herself: "Wow, look at this giant lady!!" We dragged her off with much embarrassment. The lady had it coming not only through the obvious but by also wearing bright purple and yellow bodice.

We walked around the lake and had kibinai and kvas from a street vendor. Kibinai tasted almost like ours at home. What a weird concept. It was very pleasant and not very hot anymore. The kids spent some more time in the lake next to the castle. There were more wedding and bachelor and bachelorette parties. The party whose coming out of the church we ruined got a follow-up from us as they were crossing the bridge to the castle. As they started walking towards us Georgia said, "here is a beautiful bride, and here is a princess, and here is a queen, and here is a ..." and then she stopped, with her mouth opened because she was asked not to comment on that and similar ladies. But the rest of the party must had already made that comment in their heads, so we lowered our heads and kept on walking.

Here is a particularly striking and beautiful example of the bachelor party - note the guy on skis on the tour around the lake.

By observation I think that the requisite items of a Lithuanian women's wardrobe are white linen dress, white linen shirt, and white or/and brown linen pants. Anyone reading is welcome to comment on the truthfulnes of these statements.

Isabella really hates driving and she let us know that during all the drives. On the other hand, Georgia wanted us to tell her fairytales all the time to drown down the "noise." Dan has gotten enough of it and asked for someone, anyone, to keep it down. Georgia, the sweet heart, obliged. She stuck out her tongue and tilted her head and said "Schitaite chto ya dohlaya." - "Consider me dead." It was really funny and made us laugh.