Lithuania’s Hill of Crosses (Happy Easter!)

by Neil Woodburn on

I’ve done a fair bit of traveling through the Baltics but had never heard anything about this fantastic cross-covered hill in Lithuania. It wasn’t until I was surfing through EnglishRussia.com last night that I learned about this place. Alas, one of the great tragedies of travel is learning about something you missed while abroad. Damn!

The Hill of Crosses (Kry?iu Kalnas) is located in North Lithuania near the town of Šiauliai–the fourth largest city in the country. No one knows why the custom started, but for whatever reason, the crosses began appearing in the 14th century. Over the years, devout pilgrims journeyed here to place their own cross on the hill–supposedly an act that would bring good luck.

The hill fell on bad times during the Soviet occupation and was actually bulldozed a number of times, and yet the crosses would spring back under the cover of darkness until eventually the godless commies gave up.

Today there are at least 50,000 crosses crammed onto this little hill and more are placed there every day. Wow. I will be sure to detour here on my next visit to Lithuania. In the meantime, join me in living vicariously through the photos on EnglishRussia.com.

Take The Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter Tour!

by Jonathon Morgan on

No, you haven’t gone crazy — Hannibal Lecter is still a fictional character. However, in the novel-turned-movie, “Hannibal Rising,” the authors chose to set the serial killer’s youth in Lithuania, a choice that the country hopes will boost tourism.

Enter Saules Kelias, an agency that’s offering tours of “Lecter’s native land.” For only 100 euros ($131), you get a trip around Vilnius, a “Hannibal feast” (I can’t imagine what they’re serving) — even a visit with Lecter himself.

The character was created for the 1981 book “Red Dragon,” and made famous by Anthony Hopkins in “Silence of the Lambs,” a movie that was adapted from a book by the same name.

Would you take the tour?

Retracing Napoleon’s Russian Footsteps

by Neil Woodburn on

I posted a few days ago about how enjoyable Moscow can be in the wintertime despite the horrific cold weather which is so legendary in the Russian capital.

The Russian winter, however, has regularly proved fatal to one type of traveler intent on reaching Moscow: the foreign soldier.

Most recently, it was Hitler’s troops who fell to the ravages of winter just 41 kilometers outside of Moscow. Before that it was Napoleon’s. Napoleon, however, accomplished what Hitler never could; he actually reached the Russian capital. He waited there for five weeks for the Czar to surrender (which he never did) and then hastily retreated as the worst part of the winter hit.

The result was catastrophic.

A fascinating article in City Paper (The Baltics States) retraces this failed military campaign and tells the story of how Napoleon marched into Russia via the Baltics with 500,000 soldiers–only to return a few months later during his winter retreat with just 40,000 remaining.

The account of this tragedy has recently resurfaced due to the discovery of a mass grave in Vilnius containing more than 2,000 of Napoleon’s soldiers who had frozen or starved to death.

It was a horrific campaign through harsh lands and stark conditions. I’ve traveled the same route via train and suffered through equally as cold Moscow winters, but I simply can’t imagine doing so on foot, across such great distances, with 19th century clothing and gear, and Cossacks shooting at me.

History, geography, and travel are indeed strange, and at times, horrific bedfellows. When you have the opportunity to combine all three together and understand their correlations, it makes for a very powerful experience indeed.

Changes in the European Union, 2007

by Neil Woodburn on

Every new calendar year brings about changes in the European Union which affect those who travel there regularly.

My favorite change is the addition of two more countries to Europe’s non-smoking club. Ireland was the first country to ban smoking in public places a few years ago, followed by Italy, Malta and Sweden. As of the first of the year, Belgium and Lithuania have followed in their footsteps. France, England and Finland will “toughen up their restrictions” as well this year according to an article on EuroNews.net. Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Portugal remain the smoky stalwarts, and the place to go for all you nicotine fiends out there.

2007 also brings the arrival of two new countries into the EU: Bulgaria and Romania. It will be a long time before the Euro is officially accepted in these backwater, post-communist regions, but citizens rejoiced on New Year’s with the realization that it will happen some time in the next decade.

Slovenians, on the other hand, celebrated New Year’s by extracting Euros out of local ATMs. This small post-communist country, once part of Yugoslavia, is the first post-communist country to officially change over to the Euro. Nine other post-communist countries joined the EU in 2004 along with Slovenia, but only Slovenia has been able to meet the economic requirements necessary to switch over to the Euro. This is great news for travelers tired of changing currencies. The bad news, however, is that both residents and tourists fear this will result in an increase in prices. Considering Slovenia is already one of the most expensive post-communist countries to visit, this is not a welcome prediction.

Word for the Travel Wise (01/01/07)

by Adrienne Wilson on

Okay, so after watching the comical yet sad video below out of Lithuania where a poor man tries crawling across the street after a night of too much drinking (Thanks Neil) it made picking today’s word easy. My hope is that no one started their New Year’s off this way. Its one thing to have a few drinks, but being in a state like the fellow below is just plain scary.

Today’s word is a Lithuanian word used in Lithuania:

alus – beer

First and foremost the best guide to the Baltics seems to be City Paper. They were the only ones who even offered a small list of commonly used Lithuanian words. The paper states you’ll be okay if you know a little Russian and the Lithuanian lingo is closely related to the now extinct Old Prussian. Otherwise finding resources on this one were pretty hard and um, weird. This afoto site lets you learn the parts of the face and hair by clicking on a picture of a young girl. Something about this felt awkward, but it works, I guess. Ominglot has their usual written language guide and Orbislingua has a few audio and reading recommendations. To purchase talking dictionaries click here.

Past Lithuanian words: viesbutis, gatve, skanaus