The Munich to Moscow Meander - Part II:

A Look Into Lithuania

So what do you think of when someone says "Vilnius" or "Lithuania"? What images come to mind? Not much? Well, that's how it was for me as well. This is one of the reasons I love to travel. You hear about places, you might even see a picture or two in a book or on the news, but to be there and walk the streets, listen to the people. and breathe the air is something different. Suddenly you have a definitive experience to accompany these titles in your memory. And you might just find a few surprises...


Sunday, August 19, 2012

 I woke up at 5am at my Polish hostel. My one day in Warsaw was really just a taster for a larger Poland trip I'd like to do someday. For now, however, it was time to head further north and further east. Today I would be entering my first new country since Nepal. It would also be my first time entering the former Soviet Union. I was excited!

I boarded a big yellow bus at the main station and found a pleasant setting inside. Each seat was comfy with plenty of legroom with a little screen on the seat in front of you just like in an airplane, where you could interact with a few different types of media (including a GPS map of where the bus is), and complimentary water bottles. Even headphones were provided for those without so that the whole bus wouldn't have to listen to the soft strains (and I do mean strains) of Alvin and the Chipmunks 4 in Polish like on my bus to Warsaw.

For the next 8 hours we drove across the Polish countryside towards Lithuania...


View Munich - Vilnius in a larger map

 I watched on the GPS screen in front of me as we approached the Lithuanian frontier. When we crossed over I noticed the large border control building, which once had extensive security, sitting empty and derelict as we whizzed past. Thanks to the EU Schengen Agreement, a person can travel from Portugal to Finland without ever needing to show a passport. I had made it to Lithuania and the former USSR!

Losing an hour to the time zone, I arrived at 4pm local time and walked from the bus station to my hostel in the middle of the Vilnius old town. I was surprised to find a rather sleepy, quiet capital city.

But Vilnius is beautiful and very green. It is also a city very markedly divided between old and new. On one side of the river is old town: one of the largest and best-preserved old towns in all of Europe with many fine examples of Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and other historical styles of architecture.

On the other side of the river is the new town with office buildings and high rises (and, serendipitously, a hot-air balloon)... 

You know, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was once the largest kingdom in Europe. At its height in the late 14th Century it stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.

Today Gediminas Tower is one of the few medieval reminders that Vilnius was the capital of this great empire.









Vilnius has always been a melting pot of cultures and religions. After its stint as a medieval powerhouse it was taken over by Poland and then later by Russia. By 1897 Jews made up the largest ethnic group in Vilnius followed by Poles, Russians, and then Lithuanians! No wonder Napoleon, a hundred years before that, named Vilnius the "Jerusalem of the North."

Needless to say, there are a lot of beautiful churches (though, sadly, WWII wiped out the Jewish community).

Everywhere you look in the old town are different old churches...

Some are properly Baroque...

This Catholic Shrine is known as "The Gates of Dawn." There's a holy shrine inside (nothing to do with Pink Floyd, though)...

An Orthodox Church...

St. Anne's Church is one of the most beautiful...

I stopped keeping track of the names and which religion which church belonged to....

I ducked into the Dominican Catholic church. The entrance was sort of an indoor alleyway, medieval and old, with frescoes of death and skeletons on the walls. It was too dark to photograph but very cool to pass through. I felt like I was on the Terror Ride at Lagoon. Inside, mass had just finished...

Not bad considering before 20 years ago these churches were museums, concert halls, or anything but places of worship...

Vilnius Cathedral with it's iconic bell tower are city landmarks...

Of course the town hall and nearby Radisson Hotel are no less ornate...

And festive...

Sunday night was quiet and peaceful...

Lithuania is the land of mushrooms. It is a national obsession (more on that in the next post) and you can order some really tasty meals with wild mushrooms. This was a wild mushroom soup in a rye breadbowl with some local cold cuts. Very tasty...

Above me in this restaurant were little puppets watching me eat. There were also live chickens behind glass at the entrance of the restaurant. It was random and amusing.

My hostel was fine. I roomed with a couple of Poles and some others I never got a chance to speak to. Here was the social room (with my backpack there next to the couch)...

So now you have something to picture next time you hear "Lithuania" or "Vilnius" mentioned.

I woke up the next morning happy to be spending my birthday in such a beautiful historical city...

Way to GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.....

NATE!

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The Munich to Moscow Meander - Part I:

WHAT I SAW IN WARSAW

 

Friday, August 17, 2012:

As soon as I finished teaching for the day I hustled home, changed, and got my stuff together. I walked out the door with my backpack and embarked on one of the longest overland journeys I had ever taken: Munich to Moscow.

Not far from my apartment in Munich is the ZOB (Zentrale Omnibusbahn) where I boarded a coach bus in which I would spend the next 16 hours. I ate my packed dinner as we drove through the evening in the Bavarian countryside. I started my book for the trip: a 900-page Cold War spy thriller.

I got out to brush my teeth when we stopped in Nürnberg at dusk. After that, I fell asleep and when I woke up again we were already well into Poland. After another couple hours of sleep I found myself stepping off the bus in Warsaw.

View Munich to Warsaw in a larger map

  One of my favorite things is to alight from a bus, a train, or an airplane in a new country. Some things are familiar, some things are new. Your job is to decipher and discover, witness and watch as daily life goes on like normal for people you've never met in a place you've never been. Arriving at the bus station in Warsaw was no different. I made my way to my hostel and after checking in, I went off to explore the city.

Warsaw has had a rough history, but you wouldn't necessarily know it by looking around the city today.

While Warsaw hasn't always been the Polish capital, it has been an important city for half a millennium. During that time it has been a center for trade, art, and culture.




Polish cuisine might not be the most sought after or influential but the famous dumpling sure are tasty.

Some of Warsaw's sons and daughters are giants in their respective fields: Marie Curie and Nicholas Copernicus, for example. See the planets in the square orbiting Copernicus's statue?

 

And of course, Frédéric Chopin, the legendary composer. Though his body is interred in Paris, his heart is kept inside this church in Warsaw across from the Copernicus monument (and the KFC):

Warsaw also had a large and lively Jewish population, which flourished until the 1930's when it was completely wiped out by the Nazis. The 20th Century was not kind to Warsaw.

Memorial building in the former Jewish Ghetto:

Surprisingly, the Jewish Synagogue still remains.



Occupied by the Third Reich, Poland was not only a miserable place for the Jews, but for most Poles as well. In 1944 the Warsovians had had enough and the Warsaw Uprising began. The Russians were already in Poland and the Poles believed that the Red Army would come in and assist them in their struggle against the Germans.

The Russians, however, watched and waited as a vengeful Hitler ordered Warsaw to be razed to the ground. The uprising was defeated with nearly 90% of the city reduced to rubble and over 200,000 civilians killed. Stalin, you see, knew that a rebellious Poland would be difficult to control after "liberation" and so refrained from intervening until the resistance could be extinguished by the Germans.

One of the few prewar buildings that was neither destroyed nor rebuilt:

After the Soviets marched into the city it was easy to install a communist puppet government. It would be over 40 years before the Poles would have real freedom again. But they endured and they rebuilt. In fact, the entire old town was reconstructed based on old photographs, paintings, and surviving architectural plans.

Walking around the Old Town today, you would have no idea of the destruction that took place only a few generations before.



In the 50's Stalin gave a gift to the people of Warsaw in the form of this Socialist-Classical skyscraper (still one of the tallest buildings in the EU):

It is the Palace of Science and Culture and today houses apartments, offices, a movie theater, and event halls.

While the "Palace" has a certain imperial elegance to it, most of the structures built during the socialist era were not so pretty:

But the 90's came and Poland broke free from the disolving USSR and the Warsaw Pact. Since then they have enjoyed rapid growth and development. Modern skyscrapers are now prominent features of the Warsaw skyline.

And shopping malls with all the best stores are not hard to find.

The Old Town thrives like in any other major European city.

There are jazz concerts.

Street performers.

Cool graffiti.

(this was actually outside the Chopin Music Conservatory. It was fun to stand outside the windows and play "Name That Tune" while listening to students practice.)

Churches, bridges, balloons, and stadiums.

Tourists.



Polish patriots are memorialized.

The night is alive with a festive atmosphere.



And where there was once horror and hell there is now peace.

I started this blog post on Sept. 11 and I guess that is somewhat appropriate. It's a day of loss for my country and for my family, but as my visit to Warsaw reminded me, no matter the loss and sorrow of the past there is always the hope of renewal, rebuilding, resurrection, and real peace.

....Oh yeah, and there is sour rye soup with a Polish sausage and a horseradish egg and glass of fruit compote to top off a great day in a great city.

...