Rest Day

Today was the first rest day so far. I got out of bed around 8am, and had a terrible hangover. I went downstairs to the kitchen and sat down, the hostel guy was there and was preparing croissants, also there was a nice old man from South Korea. It was good chatting to both of them, the hostel guy worked in London for 2 years, and actually studied English in my hometown - Weymouth. This was the first time he had met anybody from Weymouth since.

Korean guy and I ate the croissants, and when Stefan got to the kitchen they were all gone.

I decided to go for a run to try and beat off my hangover, the hostel guy recommended running to the “hill of the three crosses” which overlooks the old town just behind the castle.

I started running, and each pounding step caused pain in my head, but gradually the head pain disappeared as I started running up the 163m hill. On top there were three crosses where several Franciscan friars were brutally beheaded.

There were other hills which I ran up and down before running up the river for a while. After 45 minutes my legs were giving me some problems, and I ended up walking with a limp for the rest of the day. I have some kind of running injury in general and probably need to stop running completely for some months in order to recover.

After the run I collapsed on the bed, before going out to a cafe and getting coffee and cake and working, then going back and crashing again, then going out for coffee and cake and working and finally getting lost and wondering back to the hotel.

Stefan had gone out for a beer when I got back and had invited me along, I met him and we found a Pizza place and had Pizza beer, I didn’t want to drink more beer however, so went back to the hostel while Stefan ventured out to some more bars.

It’s tempting to stay another day here, but tomorrow I’ll leave after the morning croissants - on my own, as Stefan is flying back to Berlin having already cycled from Tallinn. There is a EuroVelo cycle route heading to the capital of Latvia, Riga, which I think will take 3-4 days, then I will have another rest.

Have enjoyed my stay in old-town Vilnius. Although it’s touristy, it is not saturated with tourists, and there is lots of space and locals seem to be at least matching the tourist numbers.