Day 261 Tues 3 Jul 2007 Kaunas to Vilnius, Lithuania

It’s raining a bit as we drive east towards Vilnius but it clears up as we arrive. Again the main attraction is the Unesco-listed medieval town centre with its squares, cobbled streets and mass of baroque churches. After finding a hotel in the old town and swapping our Polish Zloty for Lithuanian Litas we start to explore, climbing up to the castle and checking out the cathedral. It's all very laidback and relaxed, without hoards of tourists and the over-the-top prettiness of Italy or Czeckia. We finish our exploration at the Gates of Dawn but as it’s late evening the piper has gone home so we do too.

Lithuania seems determined to go places, since joining the EU. It was the first country to break away from the Soviet Union and the first to ratify the new EU constitution. It’s also tech savvy, on a par with Turkey for free internet wifi everywhere (except in our hotel where its baroque - pronounced broke) Then there are the zeppelin shaped potato dumplings which we are reliably advised taste like eating a teddy bear coated in snail slime. Maybe Unesco should have listed these instead.