Memories and hints of a travelling IT professional.
The Fährmannsfest at Hannover, Germany is one of these music festivals that evolved over time and became bigger and bigger. Founded in 1983 it was first a free open air concert with local bands financed by selling food and drinks. Today even some well-known bands play here in front of up to 10.000 visitors and for two of the three days of the festival you now have to buy a ticket.
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The Albaniplatz at Göttingen, Germany is named after nearby protestant church St. Albani. It is a large parking area that many people use to go shopping in the city center or to visit an event at the Stadthalle next to it. But most people don’t know what happend here in 1933. By that time the place was called Adolf-Hitler-Platz and it became the place where the books of great authors were burned that the Nazis classified as degenerated.
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You can for sure spend months in the Baltic states to enjoy the beautiful landscape. But they are gives you also the chance to easily visit three countries in one week: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. And it is not one homogenous area without differences – that can easily be observed in the capital cities: Tallinn with its wonderful old city fortifications, Rīga with its fantastic art nouveau quarter and Vilnius with its nice baroque style buildings and more than 50 churches.
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The Lithuanian language belongs – like Latvian to the balto-slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. 3.2 million people speak this language and it is also spoken in regions of Belorussia and Poland. A strong Lithuanian community also exists in Ireland. Lithuanian seems to be close to Latvian (in contrast to Estonian), but they are different languages that even the locals have to learn.
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Vilnius is with more than 570.000 inhabitants the biggest city and the capital city of Lithuania. It is beautifully located on different hills and next to two rivers (Neris, Vilnia – giving the city its name). The city contains many baroque style buildings of Italian original and it contains more than 50 churches. That’s why it is sometimes called the ‘Rome of the East‘. A legend says that Grand Duke Gediminas dreamt of an iron wolf that howled extremely loud while he was sleeping on a hill next to the confluence of rivers Neris and Vilnia.
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Like in all three Baltic states trolley busses (which have become pretty rare throughout the western Europe) belong to the city of Vilnius, Lithuania. In addition there is a large fleet of normal busses that you can use to travel around. Since 2001 the construction of a metro system with three lines connecting the busiest spots is discussed – but work hasn’t started yet.
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I usually try to omit travelling in groups – you never know whom you’ll have to spend the day with. But I learned that you can also miss a lot of fun. When I planned my trip through the Baltic states I booked a normal long-distance bus from Tallinn, Estonia to Rīga, Latvia. When planning the segment towards Vilnius, Lithuania I tried to find a railway connection but found an unexpected alternative.
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When arriving at Kaunas, Lithuania I had a look on my smartphone and the digital map suprised me: the river next to me which my local guide called Nemunas was labeled as river Memel. A name I had heard before. It is a 937 kilometers long stream that begins in Belorussia and runs via Lithuana into the Baltic sea. In a small section it forms the border between Lithuania and Belorussia – but before reaching the sea it also forms the border between Lithuania and the Kaliningrad Oblast belonging to Russia.
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The Latvian language belongs to the balto-slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. It is therefore totally different to Estonian (which is a Finno-Ugric language), but rather close to Lithuanian (but locals say they can’t understand each other fully without learning the other language). It is spoken by around 1.7 million people.
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If there is only one thing that you would remember about Rīga, Latvia – then it would be art nouveau. There is a complete quarter full of houses in this wonderful style (located in Elizabetes iela, Alberta iela and Strēlnieku iela) and that is the reason why the city is a UNESCO world heritage site. But you will find also other fantastic architectural styles throughout the city – within the city center you overlook buildings like the old exchange, the house with the cat on the roof, the opera or the academy of sciences.
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