Travel to Lithuania

When the foreign guests come to Lithuania, 3 excursions are offered in the first place - Vilnius Old-town (baroque architecture), Trakai town and castle in the middle of the lake and Leninland near to Druskininkai - mineral water resort town.

Vilnius sometimes may be boring, Trakai is classic while Leninland is really challenging and interesting both for Lithuanians and foreign guests.

Leninland is the name for foreigners only. Sorry guys, but we need to get your attention by some famous word. In Lithuanian it is called Grūtas Park. Grūtas is a small village which has nothing to do with famous Russian politician Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Leninland is called so because of lots of Lenin’s statues, you can see here. Not only Lenins, but also Stalins and other famous Soviet politicians, writers and supporters of the Regime.

Statues have been saved from destruction during the early twenties, when in 1991 Lithuania declared the independence from Soviet Union. The statues of the Regimen people had been destroyed one buy one, but one person tried to save them in the small park near Druskininkai. With the time the park got bigger and bigger, now it is huge with all those statues and walking lanes in the forrest.

Statues may not be so interesting to our foreign guests as they may not have experienced the Soviet regime, so they will have the same meaning as our Grand Duke Gediminas in the central Vilnius square - just the concrete art. Leninland is also famous for its Soviet museum with the soviet cinema theatre. This theatre shows the propaganda movies which were usually shown before the movie. Also the museum exposes lots of interesting artifacts of Soviet era, books, documents.

The museum may be boring to young people. No problem, there are lots of other things to do. In the first place you should go to the lunapark, where some swing attractions are restored Soviet ones. It is a great experience to use the old fashioned swings called “ships”. They even have breaks to stop and you do not need to pay for a time.

The Lunapark is for small kid, right? Real men do not like Lunaparks. What about zoo? Leninland is also famous for it’s mini-Zoo. They have lots of birds, foxes, some camels and even a kangaroo. 

In the end of your journey I would recommend to taste the Soviet cuisine if you dare. The restaurant makes good Lithuanian food, but 3 dishes are really special. They are Soviet recipe dishes. One of them is meatball brought in metal plate. Also traditional red-beat soup “borshch” and herring with 150 ml of vodka in a traditional glass. After the meatball, you will need at least half of the glass :) They even have kids menu - sausages with mustard. 

Some advice:

- Wear comfortable shoes as you will walk a lot. We do not have mountains, but still you will not walk only on the floor.

- Grab some extra batteries for your camera as you may see lots of interesting stuff.

- Take some digesting enzymes if you intend to try Soviet cuisine. Even Lithuanian stomachs sometimes revolt after the “shnitzel”.

- Have a positive attitude to the history. Soviets did lots of ferocious things to the people of Lithuania and all the occupied territories, however they have created a specific lifestyle. Leninland is about the Soviet lifestyle. If you want to see what bad things soviets did, please visit Genocide museum in Vilnius and go to the interactive excursion Soviet Bunker, where you can feel how bad it can be in Soviet Union.

Here is the list of 50 biggest Lithuanian cities by population (Source - Wikipedia).

1. Vilnius – 542 932 
2. Kaunas – 336 912 
3. Klaipėda – 177 812
4. Šiauliai – 120 969
5. Panevėžys – 109 028 
6. Alytus – 63 642 
7. Marijampolė – 44 885 
8. Mažeikiai – 38 819 
9. Jonava – 33 172 
10. Utena – 31 139 
11. Kėdainiai – 29 824 
12. Telšiai – 29 107 
13. Visaginas – 26 804
14. Tauragė – 26 429 
15. Ukmergė – 25 866 
16. Plungė – 22 287 
17. Kretinga – 20 748
18. Šilutė – 19 720 
19. Radviliškis – 18 436 
20. Palanga – 17 234
21. Gargždai – 16 281 
22. Druskininkai – 15 544
23. Rokiškis – 14 937 
24. Biržai – 13 762 
25. Elektrėnai – 13 248 
26. Garliava – 12 938 
27. Kuršėnai – 12 721 
28. Jurbarkas – 12 510 
29. Vilkaviškis – 12 483 
30. Raseiniai – 11 644
31. Anykščiai – 11 400 
32. Lentvaris – 11 277 
33. Grigiškės – 11 121 
34. Naujoji Akmenė – 10 733 
35. Prienai – 10 489 
36. Joniškis – 10 312 
37. Kelmė – 9 984 
38. Varėna – 9 771 
39. Kaišiadorys – 9 395 
40. Pasvalys – 7 997
41. Kupiškis – 7 833 
42. Zarasai – 7 349 
43. Skuodas – 6 920 
44. Molėtai – 6 771
45. Kazlų Rūda – 6 658 
46. Širvintos – 6 654
47. Šalčininkai – 6 402
48. Šakiai – 6 286 
49. Pabradė – 5 995
50. Švenčionėliai – 5 960 

We call them cities even though it may seem as towns or even villages ;)

Travel2Lithuania is a simple blog with some information about Lithuania. I will try to provide some serious reasons, why everyone should come to Lithuania and stay here for a few days.

Lithuania is a small country. If you decide to visit 5 biggest cities in one day, you will have a fast and successfull trip: Vilnius-Kaunas-Klaipėda-Šiauliai-Panevėžys-Vilnius. All this trip is 105+215+155+79+136=690 kilometers. If you drive with an average speed of 100 km/h, all this trip can be done in just 7 hours. You will need to make a couple of stops, so all the country can be seen just in 9 hours by car. Now you can image, how small we are in fact.

Even though the country is small, it has lots of things to show. We do not have mountains and impressive waterfals, Our sea is not suitable for surfing, we do not have deserts, glaciers or geisers, however we have some natural nature resources which are amazing and can be bragged about. This blog will try to show all of them.