Phew! It’s been a long time since I don’t write about my Eurotrip and I’m sorry about that. I just had so many other things to do and forgot a bit about telling that story.

Anyways, if you don’t remember what we did on the previous day, check it up here. Done? Alright, let’s continue with the story.

If there’s one thing that pops into my mind when someone says Lithuania it’s the green colour. The quantity of woods that you can find in that country per total surface it’s incredible!! I read somewhere that the 30% of the total area is forest.

That day we spent visiting one beautiful national park, considered to be the oldest one in the country the Aukštaitija National Park. That wasn’t the first time that I was in that place, because many weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to a festival of electro-minimal-weird music. The SŪPYNĖS music festival. This park has an area of 405.70 km² and the nearest city to it is Ignalina. Yey!!

Monika took me to one special place, called Ladakalnis where you are supposed to carry a stone from the bottom of the hill to the top. Then you leave it next to a tree and make a wish. The bigger the stone the bigger the chances you get for the wish to become true. Check, by the way, the pictures that I took in that area of Lithuania.

Ladakalnis is a 175m height hill from which you can see 6 different lakes. A really nice (according to how the lithuanians call it) «mountain» to chill, take some pictures and enjoy the sightseeing.

Once that we were back on our steps, there was another small village that we had to visit, Ginučiai, famous for its 19th century mill and located in the shore of one of the lakes that you can see from Ladakalnis, the Linkmenas lake. The population of that place is considered to be around 70 people. Not thousand no, just 70.

Yeah, if all those names sound like a tongue twister for you, try to imagine how were my firsts months here. One day I will probably tell you some funny anecdotes about my first year in Lithuania.

Then after having this «safari» through the forests and lakes, we went back to Ignalina, where we would spend our last night before going back to Kaunas and then to… Barcelona!

New day, new adventures.

After having an unsuccessful day in the second biggest city in Latvia, we planned to visit the places that my friends knew better in their home town, Ignalina. 

What a place! Lots of lakes surrounding the small town (8,000 people) and many more around all the region. But those lakes «ain’t normal lakes son» (read with a Virginian accent better), they are clear-water-nature-miracles with a refreshing water that makes you feel in heaven. There are also many forests surrounding the place to get the perfect contrast of the baltic wildness.

From my point of view, Ignalina is by far one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever visited here in Lithuania.

Also, important to mention is that I was working on my phobias. I have a terrible Acrophobia (a.k.a. fear of heights). I first found about it when I was 10 years old and my parents decided to go on top of the Pisa tower in Italy. Jesus-holy-Christ. The floor was so slippery and I didn’t have the best shoes with an ultimate grip power. Also add to this equation the fact that the tower is a bit bent and you have one of my worst experiences ever. I was scared as fuck. 

So, after giving you a small hint about my experience with the heights, my friends (if you can call those malicious people like that) took me to a tower, that was about 80m high but through my eyes looked a bit more like 2,000m tall. Damn scaring and swinging structure. Even though it was a bit hard to get to the top (hard because my muscles were blocking after every step I was taking upwards and also because my hands were so sweaty, not because of it’s architecture) finally I made it to the top and felt a bit better once I was upstairs. I guess the fresh air and the feeling that you were beating a bit your phobias on the ass helped. (Check the picture above to see the tower I’m talking about).

There are many of those towers around the region (Ignalinos Rajonas) and it’s really worth the view you can get after the suffering of going upstairs.

One of the pictures that I took from the tower. I’m really proud about this pic 🙂

One interesting fact about this picture is that it was featured in the Facebook group We Love Lithuania where they share the best pictures about the baltic country. Check the photo here and give it a like! 😀