Airport        Downtown        Frank Zappa        Russian Embassy        Europe's Geographical Center        Mexican Food       

Downtown

Vilnius is quite a large city, with a very well restored downtown area. Only rarely did we see buildings that still needed serious work in downtown. While seeing numerous styles, we did not see a large number of very modern buildings. I remember Vilnius as the city of large gateways.
Right in the center of town in a large park is a hill with the remnants of a defense structure. From there, one has a great view of the city.

 
   
       
     
     
   
   
   
   
   
   

Airport        Downtown        Frank Zappa        Russian Embassy        Europe's Geographical Center        Mexican Food       

Frank Zappa

Imaging walking down a street and all of a sudden seeing a mural that is undeniably Frank Zappa. Upon closer inspection you also find a bust of Frank. That's what happened to us. (-or should I say: ME?)
So how did Frank end up here? The short story is that the bust was commissioned by the music academy in Vilnius, but upon completion the powers that be had decided that he will not be placed at the academy. So a new home had to be found, which was a little corner "park".
As far as we know it was the only public bust of Frank Zappa worldwide in 2000. - And may as well still be.

   
     

Airport        Downtown        Frank Zappa        Russian Embassy        Europe's Geographical Center        Mexican Food       

Russian Embassy

One of our main goals in Vilnius was to get the Russian Visa for our visits to Kalinigrad and St. Petersburg. We took a taxi to the Embassy around lunch time. Since it didn't look like we would ever find a taxi there and we were quite unable to call for one ourselves, if the embassy was not cooperative in getting us a cab, we asked the driver to wait.
The embassy referred us to the visa service accross the walkway, where we then ended up waiting and paying for the visa for the next almost 5 hours. But we were successful. Both Rosi and I had a multiple entry visas valid for a few days around the date when we expected to arrive at the two places.
Roswitha checked roughly every hour with the taxi driver, and afterwards, we asked him to take us to the Geographical Center of Europe, which made the wait also somewhat worth while for him. Luckily the days are long this time of year.

   
 

Airport        Downtown        Frank Zappa        Russian Embassy        Europe's Geographical Center        Mexican Food       

Europe's Geographical Center

As determined by the European Geographical Society, the geographical center of Europe is slightly North of Vilnius. Lithuania established a permanent outdoor Art Exhibit around the location in time for the start of 2000.

 
   
   
     
     

Airport        Downtown        Frank Zappa        Russian Embassy        Europe's Geographical Center        Mexican Food       

Mexican Food

On our way to the hotel we suddenly found ourselves in front of a Mexican restaurant - and could not resist. It definitely was a restaurant for business folks, we felt very underdressed next to all the suits. The decorations were fun, the food had just a hint of Mexican influence (besides the name).

   
     
   

Airport        Downtown        Frank Zappa        Russian Embassy        Europe's Geographical Center        Mexican Food