19 Jun - Kaunas to Vilnius

 Today we had only a 100 km drive from Kaunas to Vilnius so had a slow start to the day visiting the Museum of Pharmacology and Medicine in Kaunas then the Ninth Fort just north of Kaunas before heading out on the 100 km motorway drive to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania

The museum entry

Middle Ages pharmacology

From a 1920’s pharmacy

A birthing chair

A dentistry room with foot pedal driven drill

Kaunas fortresses. Kaunas was the former capital and 9 forts were built surrounding it for its defense…

The Ninth Fort is the best conserved and is now a museum and testament to the holocaust. 

It was attacked by the Nazis in 1940 and what had taken 30 years to build was breached in 11 days. The Nazis then used it as a concentration camp and some 30,000 Jews were killed there as well as another 20,000 political prisoners

A typical cell

The killing fields - the bodies buried in pits here 

A huge memorial depicting the struggle then the liberation

Then a stressful drive in heavy traffic and closed streets into Vilnius. Eventually we abandoned our attempts to drive to our accommodation in the old town, heading to the rental car drop off in the new town and taxiing to our very well located apartments. A slight problem getting the access code..

..then it was straight into the Town Hall square one minute walk away for some stress relieving alcohol 

Next was dinner at an Italian restaurant in the square

A post dinner wandering. A sadly neglected church..

.. a trendy bar strip..

.. and a fascinating portal which displayed real time feed of people from various other portals around the globe - these being Ireland