We like to take day trips. It’s fun to jump in the car and go off exploring parts of Lithuania we’ve never seen before. Or at least parts which some of us have never seen before. Interestingly, I’ve probably seen more of the little out of the way places than either Rasa or Monki. All of which brings us to this past weekend, when Rasa decided we should take a little trip to Anykščiai.
Now, we’d been near Anykščiai before. A few years back we visited the forests and the Puntukas Stone, but Rasa had never been to the actual city. I had, exactly ten years before (August 3) it turned out (thanks past me for blogging about it), and what I’d done when I was there was not what Rasa wanted to do, namely visit the train museum and ride the narrow-gauge sightseeing train.
So we got up on Saturday morning and headed out.
Our first stop, as planned, was the train station. Rasa had looked up the timetables and the scenic train had an afternoon departure, so we figured we’d get there, get our tickets, then look around the museum and such. Not a bad plan… except for the fact that the scenic train was booked out for a special event.
Not to worry. There were still a few things we could do. There was a short train ride on the narrow-gauge rails as well as a hand car we could ride. There was also the museum just across the way. All good!
We took the 5-minute up and back electric train ride (over the rickety bridge with the turnaround point at the nearby road) and then Rasa, Monki, and I took the opportunity to pump the hand car. It was difficult, but I thought the mechanism was quite ingenious. Also, I couldn’t help but think of Cleavon Little taking the handcar to end of the line.
The whole complex was pretty cool. The rails we were traveling lined up next to the old station (where we bought our tickets and souvenirs). In the middle of the yard was a restaurant (which we didn’t go into) and just across the tracks from the station was the museum.
The museum was actually three different buildings (as well as the station itself), each hosting various aspects of local train history. Plus, along with your ticket, you got a guided tour, so that was cool. We started out just the three of us, but as we went along, we kept adding more people to our group, and each time we changed guides. In the end, we had about a dozen people and three different guides. In one building, we saw huge steam trains and various types of train cars, including refrigerated cars and the cattle cars they used to transport people to Siberia. In another, we could see all sorts of train equipment, most of which had been in use until recently, but now was obsolete.
In the last building (although it was the second we visited) was an auto museum. All of the cars were functional and, if the guide was to be believed, all had some sort of connection to the Anykščiai area. They were pretty cool regardless. Some brands I’d never heard of and some awesome motorcycles were also on display.
Outside the museum were a couple of other vehicles we could ride along the narrow rails, including a bike with a ride-along platform. Monki enjoyed trying to pedal that one. The wagon, which had the same mechanism as the handcart, was a bit easier to get down the line.
Monki and I also had an interesting discussion: basically, she was a bit bored and asked me if I liked museums. Of course, the place we were in I didn’t understand anything I was looking at beyond a superficial knowledge since I don’t speak the language the information was being disseminated in. But I told her I did like museums, in general.
“I like museums where there’s stuff to do, not just stuff to look at,” she explained.
Made sense to me. Which is probably why a number of the major museums I’ve been to in the past few years all have kid friendly apps with games and activities to while you’re looking at the exhibits.
By the time we finished with the trains, it was lunch time. Sure, Rasa had packed us all a lunch, but why not grab a bite locally. We drove the 3 minutes into the city center, parked the car and looked around. I noticed a restaurant over the river.
“I’ve eaten there,” I said, pointing.
“Okay, let’s go,” announced Rasa.
So we went. While we waited for our food to arrive, I decided to look up that past blog post about my last visit. That’s when I discovered we were there 10 years to the day after. I also discovered that the restaurant wasn’t very good when we were there 10 years earlier.
Rasa decided we could use this decade gap to see if the food had gotten any better.
Spoiler alert – it hadn’t. It’s one of those location restaurants where they think they don’t actually have to work on the food since the view will overcompensate. Same is true for any eatery at the top of a very tall tower, whether it rotates or not.
But at least we had food in our belly.
Our next plan was to take another little tourist train around town… unfortunately, though, we’d just missed it and it only ran once an hour. While we waited, we walked around a little and Monki played on a huge swing hung between massive trees in a park just off the main road.
The train was one of those street legal tourist traps which went between the Anykščiai city center and the forest about 11km away. When we’d been in that forest a few years ago, we thought about taking this same train to the city but decided against it then. We’ve now rectified our past omission.
Back in the city, it was getting late and there were still things on our agenda. First was an observation tower overlooking the nearby lakes. It wasn’t terribly high, but it was made of corrugated metal, which allowed anyone walking to look straight down. Of the six landings where the stairs turned on the way to the top, Rasa made it to the second while Monki barely made it past the first. The height and lack of visible support were just too much for them.
Those things didn’t bother me, though, so I went up to the top and facetimed them so they could see the view.
But that was pretty much it for that stop. If we spent 20 minutes there it was a lot and soon we were off again, this time to a cool little windmill, surrounded by wooden sculptures. Have no idea what its purpose was, but it was a fine place to stop and take some pictures and have a small, short picnic.
Our final stop of the adventure was a small beach area to dip our toes into the cool water. This was nice. Monki and I threw rocks and watched the sun get lower in the sky.
The drive back to Kaunas was easy, although we did feel like we were running from a storm the entire way. Getting back home, we ran into an unexpected problem, though. Ed Sheeran was playing the first of two dates at the Darius and Girėnas Stadium, the largest football stadium in the Baltics…which just happens to be about a mile from our place. On a clear night, we can hear whatever concerts are happening. It also means people will park by us and walk to the venue. It took Rasa more than 20 minutes to find a spot to park.
At the end of the day, it was another successful mini-adventure – the kind which make life worth living.
Getting the Hang of Thursdays 