And That Concludes the Posts about Lithuania

Market Portraits

Contrary to expectations...

.. Lithuania (or at least, Vilnius) does have good food. Such as these really wonderful pastries called Kibin.





And freshly made koldunai.



The ones filled with pork almost tasted like 小笼包.





And then there was this little bakery, which made kick-ass coffees, espressos, lattes, cappucinos and other concoctions that we'd never heard of...



... and their poppy seed cake was just to die for.

Vilnius

After visiting every restaurant in Birstonas (even Pizza Fun!) we decided to move on to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.



The old town of Vilnius is a UNESCO World Heritage site and has some quite beautiful buildings.









Below is our hotel room, which was very cheap and clean, from which we could see one of the many churches of Vilnius.

Mr. Beer Belly

Another episode in our long-running series Table Manners: Frans is demonstrating how one properly enjoys one's beer.

After exercising, one needs to eat

Hence, more beer snacks and beer followed our 5-minute exercise session.









We spent two days in Birstonas eating mediocre food, and going to a spa, which was even worse than the community swimming pool in Hilvarenbeek. But somehow, we still had a good time.

The Most Active 5 Minutes of our Holiday

Since we had seen the whole of Kaunas (some of us multiple times), we took a bus to a spa town in Lithuania, called Birstonas. We took full advantage of the exercise machines we found in the park.

After a beer day and a cake day, we also spent pre-Christmas day in Kaunas. We were joined by Ellen and Christiaan, but even their presence did not detract from the fact that Kaunas is extremely boring. The cold and icy-ness of the roads took on new dimensions on this day, and almost all shops and restaurants were closed, to boot.



After showing Ellen and Christiaan the beer pub and the Christmas tree made of bottles, we were forced to go into a giant shopping mall for dinner, since everything else had already closed.



The shopping mall also featured a small arcade, where we could vent some of our frustrations.

Day 2: Cakes

After a day 1 of too much beer, followed a day 2 of too much cake...

...some beet soup to work up an appetite for more cakes...



.. and back to cake.





It is lucky that we enjoyed ourselves so much with eating cake, because otherwise, Kaunas turned out to be miserably cold, with icy streets, and sightseeing "highlights" such as a Christmas tree made of plastic bottles.

Beer snacks

Lithuania appears to be famous for its beer snacks. Our first introduction to this "assortment to beer" was at Avilys in Kaunas. It turned out that normally, beer snacks are quite a bit less fancy (and also quite a bit less expensive), consisting mainly of fried bread and some cheese.



As the name says, the "assortment to beer" was accompanied by plenty of beer. We then went to a tapas restaurant a few doors down the street. I guess (although I don't quite remember) we must have already had enough of Lithuanian food.



After some tapas and plenty more beer and wine, we walked for 45-60 minutes through the freezing cold back to our B&B in the geographical center of Kaunas.



Next day, breakfast was delivered to our room, which we quite appreciated, considering our pretty serious hangovers...

Kaunas

Because Ryanair offered cheap flights to Kaunas, Lithuania, we decided to celebrate Christmas there. Just look how exotic this place is, with its beaches, palm trees and blue skies.