38. Gdansk Poland to Vilnius Lithuania

Toughest travel day so far.

The task of getting from Gdansk Poland to Vilnius, Lithuania, proved trickier than expected. We couldn't go directly, (a direct path would take us through Kaliningrad - and though I'd love to check out Kaliningrad, perhaps some other time) and had to head southeast to Warsaw first. We've learned some of the limitations around using the Eurail pass - while you can officially book travel through the pass on a train, many trains require "reservations" as well. Sometimes you can get these reservations online, sometimes you have to go in person to the station. When you have your own car, no big deal, but when getting around takes more time & money, it gets to be a bit of a pain.

We couldn't get a train from Warsaw all the way to Vilnius, so we went partway north to Bialystok (still in Poland) to try to get a train from there, only to find the next available train to Vilnius was in September. Really??Being a former business manager and instinctive capitalist, my first thought was: Who is evaluating the supply and demand here, and adjusting operations accordingly? Haha. We're not in Kansas anymore Toto.

Anyway, we found bus options to Vilnius, leaving at either midnight or 3:45AM. Based on our arrival at Bialystok at around 4:30P, we opted for the midnight bus, and kicked around the bus station area for 7+ hours waiting. Our trip took us around 5 hours, and we got to our hotel tired and cranky around 6:45, a 24 hour travel day. Of course we couldn't check into our room, so we regrouped for a while in the lobby, grabbed breakfast at the hotel, then ventured out to the old town.

Walking zombies at this point. I wasn't particularly impressed with the town - there was really nothing of note that would distinguish it. Whether that was due to lack of sleep and corresponding crankiness, or a justified evaluation, we'll never know.Read more