Last blog!

Hello!

This is our last blog! I can’t believe it’s already over and done with! Our journey has gone so incredibly fast! I really cannot believe that we are taking a plane tomorrow eve to head back home..

It has been an amazing journey, but of course, we still have to visit the capital of our last country, Vilnius! Vilnius is the largest city of Lithuania and therefore the capital. It’s a very pleasant and beautiful city, probably because it displays a variety of architectural expressions. In 1994, the Old Town of Vilnius was listed on the UNESCO World Heritage list, we expected something like that seeing you get a sense of the interesting history throughout the whole town. In 2009, Vilnius was also the European Capital of Culture. However, we noticed the city still has to grow concerning tourist attraction. We saw a lot of advertisements for its festivals, we crossed several churches and buildings in different styles because of its many occupations,… but tourists are hard to spot. A shame though, Vilnius is truly a beautiful city with a lot of things to discover and very kind people who live there.

If we look at the city’s business development, we can be surprised by its quick growth, the whole wide world can be surprised actually. Sophie also mentioned in her blog that poverty is almost non-existing in Lithuania and you can very much see that with your own eyes, even when you go to the ‘less fortunate’ neighborhoods of the city. It seems Lithuania is the perfect country to start in if you want to do business in the Baltic countries.

Seeing we only have a day and a half to visit the city (we lost a couple of days along the road), we chose our things-to-see carefully. We started with the Cathedral Basilica and Bell Tower. When we entered the Cathedral, we were overwhelmed by St Casimir chapel, it’s an old baroque chapel with beautiful drawings. Once we came out the Cathedral, we went up Bell Tower, a symbol of Vilnius from which we had an amazing view over Vilnius city.

The Cathedral and Bell Tower are located in the middle of the Old Town. It was a bit hard walking through the town because the small streets bended and they went up and down, but we managed. Shredding through the streets we passed squares, churches, monasteries and synagogues. We also found lots of little shops where we could buy souvenirs and artifacts made by hand. The Old Town is small, but really lovely to walk through, it’s like a postcard.

Last but not least we visited the President’s Palace which is located near the Vilnius University. It was the residence of bishops and many General Governors. The palace has a beautiful yard and a wine cellar which we visited. It is still used as a home and a workplace to President Valda Adamkus. Also, many delegations from foreign countries are often received in this palace. When we walked back to the hotel, we saw some people protesting against nuclear power near the Prime Minister’s office, more detailed information we found in an article of which you can find the link below.

Tired of this day and (a little) happy to be going home tomorrow, we went to sleep in one of the many hostels in Vilnius. Tomorrow we are going to have a walk around town, visit the nearest lake for a last swim, pack our bags and take a taxi to the airport. Around midnight we will arrive in Belgium again!

Thanks a lot for following our blog, you guys! See you again in our next blog (when we saved enough money to organize a similar trip) Bye!!   

Sources: 

http://www.vilnius.com/

Article: http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/28596/

Our last country to visit

Finally, we arrive in the last country to visit, Lithuania so we tried to make the best of it. Later on we will be visiting the capital, which is Vilnius.

First, some more information about Lithuania because it is important to know the country was first part of the Soviet Union, later on they were the first Soviet republic to declare independence. Nowadays, it has one of the fastest growing economies in the European Union. Moreover Lithuania has a high average income, only 2% live in poverty, also the country has a well-developed  modern infrastructure of railways and airports. Lithuania has 99 kilometers of sandy coastline. The tourism is very important to this country too.

I read an article about Lithuania in which they say that Lithuania is a phenomenon in various ways. As I said before the tourism is so popular among the local population, because of that prices have gone up and Lithuania became stronger and stronger. The article even mentions the most popular activities in Lithuania, simply sauna and beer tourism. You can find the link of the article at the end of this blog.

Enough about that, over the years Lithuania surely developed a lot. When we were visiting, luckily it was warm weather the entire week but I heard that during the winter the temperatures can be more than -20°C. The most extreme is -40°C! Gee, I would not like to visit Lithuania during the winter.

During the week we took the bus a couple of times because we had been taking the metro in the last countries so we wanted to try something else. When we arrived some more in the centre of Lithuania we were so hungry we bought something that is called zeppelins which are meat filled potatoes based zeppelin-shaped. You do not want to be a vegetarian in Lithuania because pork is used in almost everything. 

Lithuania is also a country that has a lot of different beers so we tried some to see if they were better than in Belgium. They were actually quite nice, but I can’t say I like them better.

We were very tired at the end of the day but we were very lucky when someone offered us a place to sleep. They must have heard we were tourists and that we were looking for a hotel. Apparently home stays are typical. The next day we had a typical Lithuanian breakfast!

That day, we visited a city called Kaunas. We have seen several churches, even a forth that was used as a defensive fortress once and some museums too. We really enjoyed our stay, in other cities there were botanical gardens, large shopping streets etc.

To end with an interesting fact, basketball is the most popular sport, they have a lot of success on an international level. Another fact is that the ‘Strongest Man in The World’ lives in Lithuania, he has won so many competitions during his career as a strongman.

We are almost out of money but we still have to visit Vilnius, by train we are heading to our last city to visit. 

Sofie Van Laeken

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuania
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attractions-g274948-Activities-Kaunas.html

Article:

http://www.propertywisebulgaria.com/article/lithuania-flourishing-rural-tourism/id_655/catid_6

Four girls and the city called Brest

Hello everybody!

We are still visiting Belarus, our last country before we arrive in Lithuania. I’m a bit sad because the end of our fantastic journey comes very close.

After visiting the capital of Belarus, Minsk, we are moving on to another city called Brest. It’s not the most famous city but let me convince you that it is really worth a visit.

 

First, some background information. In 2010, there were living 310,800 living in the city who is situated at the border with Poland. It’s the capital city of the “Brest voblast”.

Since World War ll, Brest became a principal border crossing thanks to its orientation on the main railway line connecting Berlin and Moscow. Nowadays, it connects the European Union and the so called Commonwealth of Independent States, a regional organization whose participating countries are former Soviet Republics.

Because our trip is almost over, we did not want to lose a lot of time so we decided to take a shower and start exploring. We started off with a relaxing walk by the Naberezhnaya river. The riverfront has a lot of willow trees and there are a lot of ducks swimming in the river.

The next day, we took the bus to visit the Fortress of Brest that preserves the ruins of a massive fort built in the XIX century by the Russian Empire. An interesting fact is that it achieved “Hero Fortress” status during World War II. Walking the grounds of this impressive fortification is an unforgettable experience that gives a good sense of the poverty faced by the forces that were caught there.

The Fortress also owns a museum where you can learn about battles between attacking Germans and defending Soviet. We also saw there was a small part about Polish defenders who were attacked earlier by Germans and Soviets. Trust me, the history of Brest Fortress is complicated but if you are really interested, I am sure it is worth learning.

There is also a patriotic war film called: “The Brest Fortress”. You can visit the following link if you want to know more about this movie. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/dec/24/russia-spies-kremlin-backed-nationalist-film?INTCMP=SRCH

On our last day in Brest, we decided to do something very fun! We went ice-skating in the Ice Palace. Nobody of us was really good at this sport so it was quite hilarious. I am sure I will remember those moments forever.

Thanks for being with us today!

Lies Descheemaeker

Hi bloggers!

Two days ago, we woke up in Belarus after a long bus trip. It’s the last country we are going to visit before we arrive in Lithuania, our destination!

The official name of Belarus is the Republic of Belarus but we also call it in Dutch “Wit Rusland”. The official languages are Russian and Polish from which we didn’t understand a word. Thank goodness they also speak English!
The capital of Belarus is Minsk, the largest city of Belarus and situated in the centre of the country. Belarus is very dependent from the economical support of Russia. Russia provides profitable crude oil to Belarus and in exchange Russia can use for free the pipelines who are situated under Belarus.

The first day in Belarus, we visited the capital Minsk. We moved through the city by subway because it is very fast but we noticed that there was a lot of police and everyone had to walk through a metal detector. Of course the reason was the bomb attack of Monday 11 April in the metro station that was close to the president’s residence and the Palace of the Republic. There were 11 people killed and 126 people wounded. We read an article (see source article) about the bomb attack and we must say that we were a little bit scared.

Minsk is such a big city! Did you know that there are more than 20 cinemas and about 140 libraries? There are also a lot of churches and museums. The infrastructure was almost completely destroyed after the first and certainly after the second world war. The city is totally rebuilt with a lot of large streets and also the economy has improved. Nowadays Minsk produces e.g. trucks, bicycles, televisions..   

The journey was a real experience but I’m very excited to be back home with my family and friends and to tell them more about our journey!

Delphine Van Vooren

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk
http://www.belarus.by/en/travel/belarus-life
Article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/04/11/minsk-subway-explosion.html

Kyiv

Hello everyone! 

Wow, isn’t it amazing that we have come this far? Now we have arrived in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. The capital is the largest city of Ukraine and is an important industrial, scientific, educational and cultural centre of Eastern Europe. We immediately noticed the city has high-developed infrastructure combined with old buildings and has as in Iran, an amazing metro station. The stations are built very deep underground so can also be used as bomb shelters even though it is right beneath the centre. Not only are they really useful in a busy city like this, they are also very beautiful, they use these vivid and colorful decorations. It was also well maintained because there was absolutely no graffiti or vandalism as you would expect.

There was so much to see so we went to a tourist centre and asked what we should definitely visit in the limited time we have. They said we should definitely visit the two most important monuments, such as the Saint Sophia Cathedral and the Kiev Pechersh Lavra (or Kiev Cave Monastery complex). Those two monuments were inscribed on the World Heritage List  made by UNESCO. All outstanding cultural buildings are written down on this list. We were amazed by the beauty of these buildings, fortunately we had bought new batteries for our cameras. 

We were very hungry so we decided to eat some of the local specialties such as pampushki and varenik. Pampushki is a type of sandwich soaked in oil and fresh garlic and varenik is a small pie with all sorts of stuffing. We had beautiful weather visiting Kiev so we decided to have an early dinner in one of the many botanical gardens. 

Afterwards we were so exhausted so we headed back to our hotel and planned the next day before we went to sleep.

The next day during breakfast we discussed our plans for that day and as Julie mentioned in the previous blog, I was going to tell you more about Chernobyl. So we decided to go on a Chernobyl Tour, which was very interesting. We made sure we had a guide and he could tell us that on 26 April 1986 a reactor N4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station blew up during a routine maintenance operation. Almost nine tons of radioactive material was blown in the sky. It even influenced Belarus, Poland and the Baltic region. About 135.000 people were evacuated.

Before we went on the tour our luggage had to be checked and they gave us a quick lesson about evacuation. We first arrived at a monument dedicated to the fireman of Chernobyl, the ones who saved many people. They showed us how they improved security, where everyone works, there even was a movie and a photo gallery about the disaster. After that we went to the town of Chernobyl where you can find the Park of Glory, Second World War Memorial and the Board of Memory to liquidators. Some things were just very sad to see, such as the abandoned flats where private things such as toys still can be found. It was all very interesting but we were happy to go back to the city.

Later that day we were so happy to be back in Europe that we were still full of energy, so we decided to go out in some of the clubs nearby. It was fantastic, we enjoyed ourselves and knew that the next morning might be less active.

We were so tired the next morning that we just decided to take a bus in which we could take a nap because the other night we didn’t get enough sleep. Still, everything was worth it. I'm writing you this blog while everyone is asleep and the next morning we will wake up in Belarus.

Just keep on reading!

Sofie Van Laeken

Sources:

http://www.kievapartmentsforrent.com/kiev_chernobyl_tour.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiev

Ukraine

Hello everyone!

Yesterday we still had lunch in Bucharest and then we left for Ukraine. Ukraine stands for ‘country of the border’ and is mostly known for its nuclear disaster in 1986 in Chernobyl.

Three main rivers cross the country namely the Dnjepr, the Dnjestr and the Donets.

Ukraine lies in between Russia, Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Moldavia. It also has a big coast next to the Black Sea.

We chose not to pass through Moldavia because we already lost a lot of time. We entered Ukraine in the South via Odessa, near the Black Sea. Odessa is the 4^th biggest province of the country after Kiev, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk. It also has the most important port of Ukraine. In Odessa we first visited the Potemkin Stairs. These stairs are considered to be the entrance of the city and are therefore the best known symbol of Odessa. The top-step is 12.5 metres wide and the lowest step 21.7 metres. The staircase is 27 metres high and extends for 142 metres. You can imagine we were really exhausted once arriving on top!

Later on, we learned that Odessa is famous for its therapeutic resorts, it also houses one of the most developed hospitals specialized in Eye Diseases and Tissue Therapy. Something to remember whenever our eyes decide to stop cooperating!

The last thing we visited was the Odessa Opera and Ballet theater, we were too late to order tickets for Swan Lake, but just seeing the building, with its Baroque façade, was enough.

We spent the night in a youth hostel and then the next day took a bus to Dnipropetrovsk. In Dnipropetrovsk there were not so many things to see. It’s the industrial capital of Ukraine and much more we actually cannot say about the city. The reason we travelled to Dnipropetrovsk however, was because we could follow the river to Kiev, Ukraine’s capital. Seeing Dnipropetrovsk is an industrial city, which exsports a lot, we decided to search for a small shipping company that could take us to Kiev. The realistic few of our group, said no one would ever take us on their boat, but after hassling some men, we managed to find one that would take us. He was an elderly fisherman who travels every day back and forth with his fish which he sells on the market in Kiev. All excited we jumped on the boat and took off for Kiev!

Once we arrived in Kiev, we thanked the fisherman and searched for a hostel. Crossing through the city, we could see a lot of ‘signs’, 'remains' of the Chernobyl disaster. Chernobyl lies at the North of Kiev, near the borders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. 

Sofie is going to tell you more about Chernobyl and the city of Kiev, which we are going to visit tomorrow, but I wanted to tell you something about an article I found concerning nuclear plants. The article explains Russia just signed for a new nuclear plant in Belarus which is worth 9 billion $, now, while Fukushima is still luring and Chernobyl is never far away in the minds of the people. The article also uses a little controversy, letting Leonid A. Bolshov say the the Japanese disaster will give the world a lesson. What he means is that it’s a shame that this had to happen before safety became an issue. Russia however reacts with a dry ‘Lesson learned’ as an answer to the contract they just signed for a new plant. I personally think it's awful to build a new plant while disaster, in such cases, is never far away...

Anyhow, this was it for today, keep on reading our blogs and see you soon because we’re almost there!

Julie Hamerlinck

Source article: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9402E4DF1231F930A15750C0A9679D8B63&ref=ukraine

Other sources: wikipedia.com

Hi bloggers!

Today we are going to continue to explore Romania. Like you have read in the blog of Lies, we have already visited a part of Bucharest but today we decided to stay another day in Bucharest because it is such a beautiful city.

We were walking through the city when suddenly we thought we were in Paris instead of Bucharest! We saw the well-known Arcul de Triumf, The Triumphal Arch. It looks just like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. We have read on the internet that some of the buildings in Bucharest are influenced by French architects and therefore the city is once called “Little Paris” or ”The Paris of The East”. Bucharest is also the centre of the Romanian economy and industry.  

Yesterday we were walking in the woods with a guide. He warned us that we could see some animals such as bears and wolfs. We didn’t believe that we would see a bear or a wolf because we thought that this would be a coincidence. Suddenly we heard something rustle in the distance and when we looked, we saw a bear! The guide told us not to panic because he was far away from us.

During the trip in the wood, the guide gave us some information about Romania.
Did you know that the fountain pen and insulin are two famous inventions of Romania? We also got to know that the national drink is a kind of jenever made of prunes. Romania is a member of the European Union but the switching from leu, the current currency, to euro has to take place between 2011 and 2012.

Today we visited Vulturi, a small village situated in the Danube Delta. The delta is the second largest delta in Europe and has about 30 villages. Almost all the inhabitants of these villages are fishermen.

We will stay another day in Romania before we leave for Ukraine.

Thank you for reading our blog!

Delphine Van Vooren

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danube_Delta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romania
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucharest