Lithuania & Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, 2006 & 2008

Hey there! :)

Finally I'm here with a post about Lithuania. Although it's the neighbor country of Latvia, I was there just twice (not counting times I was just driving through to see another countries), and both times just for few hours. But still - I have something to tell you and some photos to show :)

First time I was there in May 2006 with my class, as we had a school excursion to Palanga and Klaipeda. Our first stop was Hill of Crosses - a place definitely to see if you're visiting Lithiania. And it's not so far from Latvia :) There are over 100 000 crosses there, looks quite interesting and even weird.

After seeing this place we went to a little city called Palanga on the shore of Baltic sea. Actually, there are not many places of interest there, but we managed to fing some.

A church with a great name Palangos Švč. Mergelės Marijos Ėmimo į dangų bažnyčia in Lithuanian and an orchestra playing music on a street near the church.

We visited Tiškevičiai Palace and Palanga Amber Museum there, saw a beautiful park (the palace is surrounded by it) - I just wonder why I don't have any photos of this place (but well, it was a school excursion) :D At the evening we went to our `hotel` or whatever it was - a place with ice-cold water, bars on windows, dirty rooms and so on. I thought I will freeze there :D But the city itself is very cosy - many shops, restaurants, streets for tourists that are perfect for short summer holidays :) And a beautiful sea, of course.

Baltic sea in Palanga

And the next day we went to another little city near the Baltic sea - Klaipeda. We didn't walk around the city at all, but we took a little ferry across the Curonian lagoon and got to the Curonian spit. One of the first things we saw there was this cute horse ^^

A horse

Soon we got to Lithuanian Sea museum. It was interesting to walk there - we saw many beautiful fish, penguins, other sea animals, and also saw a dolphin and sea lion show ^^ 

Penguins ^^

Just beautiful

This was the last place we saw in Lithuania, as we had already to go home.

But in March 2008 I visited Lithuania again with my class for one day - we went there to take part as audience in Latvian TV show `Gribi būt miljonārs?` or `Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?`. This time we went to another part of Lithuania - it's capital city Vilnius.

One of the streets in Vilnius, leading to an Old Town

We didn't have much free time in the city, so we just got something to eat, walked around the Old Town and, of course, saw famous Vilnius Cathedral. The white colour (it was renovated just before we arrived) looked amazing in the sun. And columns near the entrance are so huge!

Vilnius Cathedral and a monument to Laurynas Gucevičius, an architect that designed the Cathedral. Behind the monument you can see part of the Church of the Holy Cross.

The Cathedral

And after Vilnius we went to the studio to film the show :) One of my wishes since I remember myself was to sit in that studio, to see the game and to vote for the right answer, when player choose Ask the Audience hint :) And finally the dream came true that day. Unfortunately, Latvian version of the show ended in 2008, when I wasn't 18, so I'll probably never try this game as a player, although I would love to.

The studio from outside

Me trying a player's seat and the studio from inside

We recorded two games that day, was really interesting, and even the host said that the audience is good, as we answered all questions except one correctly, when players chose our help :)

And the final photo will be with some Lithuanian fields on my way to... what country? You will see next week :)

Fields in Lithuania

Have fun and take care! And travel a lot! ;)