Day 53 (June 25) Heidelberg to Vilnius

About 3am I was awakened by the Flash and Crack of a full bore electrical storm.  It took a bit to fall back asleep, but the alarm at 6am came way too early.  We finalized our packing, said goodbye to Steven (another rider from Oregon) who was already up, and enjoyed the cool of a light rain. The TLS shuttle was 15 minutes early (and the same driver as we saw at the restaurant yesterday).  

About an hour later we were at the terminal where we checked our motorcycle gear into storage so we wouldn't need to pack it to the Baltic.  We checked our other luggage and made our way to the Gate A26.  At security, I must have triggered something as I received the pat down, full inspection of my backpack, and test of all bags and clothing for explosive material.  I think it must have been all of the electronics that triggered the inspections.  But I passed!

At the gate we purchased some food to eat and waited for our flight.  There was a lady from Las Vegas sitting next to us who was going to Lithuania on a museum tour and she was intrigued by our adventure.  I also posted a picture on Facebook and shortly received a reply from a church friend that her husband was  in the same airport waiting for his flight back to Seattle.  It's a small world!

I went up to the gate agent and inquired about seat availability, and the agent said the flight was oversold, but she put us on the list for jump seats (available only at the pilot's discretion).  Fortunately a couple seats became available and we were able to make the flight.  We already had a room reserved at the IBIS in Vilnius, so it was really good to make this flight which arrived around 2pm. We collected our luggage and made our way out of the terminal but didn't find any telephone kiosk with which to contact the hotel.  So I asked at the information desk, "How do we get the IBIS shuttle?"  She phoned the hotel for us and soon the van picked us up and whisked us to the IBIS Styles hotel.  We learned there that the shuttle would also drop us off and pick us up downtown.  So we signed up, quickly freshened up, and took the shuttle downtown to the main gate in the old city wall where we began our walk down the winding cobblestone street.  It took a bit to get our bearings using the tourist maps we were provided. But once we got that down, navigating the old city became easy.

We found a street side cafe to enjoy a light  Lithuanian appetizer and a cold drink (it was in the 80's and high humidity) before continuing our stroll down the promenade.  

The literal high point was to take a fernicular ride up to the tower remains of the ancient castle.  We then hiked up the circular stairway of the tower to take some pictures of the scenery and admire the views.  While we had a ticket to ride down the fernicular, we decided to walk it back down the rocky driveway.  We then wound our way back to the meeting point to relax for an hour before the shuttle picked us up.  I used that time to update my blog.

Our first impressions were that this is an easily walkable city with a lot of history.  It seems to be a cross roads of the Catholic, Greek and Russian Orthodox churches. It, of course, suffered under the Soviet occupation. I hope to learn more about that on Monday when I tour the KGB museum while Angela practices.  It's also clean and neat in the old town without a lot of little convenience stores. There is, however, a lot of ice cream for sale!