Sometimes I luck out. Birstonas wasn’t on one of the webpages I used for planning – it didn’t make the “Twenty-seven Top Things to Do in Lithuania” rankings, although it made the “Even More…” list. Mer’s guidebook mentioned it, but not in great detail. So I’d debated hard about ending the vacation in a town so little known and researched by me, but I saw that it was surrounded by a river on three sides, and I knew it was a spa town. I figured it had to be pretty.
It is. We got going today around 10:00, and we spent four hours strolling the town. I had very little in the way of a plan. I guessed there was a river walk, and I wanted to take it. There was, and we did. It was scenic, with the river on our left, and the far bank was covered in trees. Our path had mown grass down to the riverside, and often had parklands on our right. We passed an ice cream stand about 11:00, and I took it as an excuse to sit and watch the river. Or I used the river as an excuse to get ice cream. Chicken/egg.
We broke from the river toward the south end of town in order to use a free bathroom. That was across the street from a church, so we crossed over to look at it. The church itself was closed, although the front door was open and gated so that people could look in. Then we saw we were next to a park with pretty flowers and sculptures. And then there were children splashing in something that turned out to be a shallow basin. In view of a very orange building which was a mineral water tap (it is a spa town, after all).
We got back on the last bit of the river walk, which passed more park land, a tree-lined path, and a huge statue to one of the Grand Dukes of the Duchy. The path ended at a pretty large hill compared to the flat town, so we took the winding path up to the top.
The views up there were great. It seems the Grand Duke built a lodge on the hill, and you can understand why. The hill overlooks the river where it turns sharply east, and the taller parts of buildings peek out from the numerous trees. We sat up there enjoying the view, the breeze, and the birdsong for about thirty minutes. We also saw there were much more direct stairs we could have climbed, so we took those down.
As we got to the bottom of the hill, Mer spoke magical words – “Is that a ride?” She had spotted off to one side an “alpine” coaster. It may be the smallest alpine coaster I’ve seen, but we certainly had to try it. And it was only eleven bucks for both of us to ride. Sweet. We had to wait in our little coaster cars while the people in front went first. The track was short enough that only one person could be on it while another was on the accent hill. Mer was in front of me, and she got to go up. As I headed up the climb hill, I saw her zooming down, laughing her head off. She was having a great time. I understood at the “top” of the hill – there was a little section more to go up, so the coaster was longer than we had thought. It was a kicky little ride. The designer(s) had made the track longer by making it wind around, which meant multiple tight corners where you were pulling some Gs. It was plenty fast enough to be fun. I got off at the bottom, checked my map to see if we had time, and then bought two more tickets to go again. What fun.
On the way back to the hotel, we walked by the shallow basin area again and saw that people were walking around with their shoes off. There was a track around the basin and fountain made of various materials, and you were meant to walk on them. We decided to try it. Walking on the different textures, according to my tourist map, “…strengthening the body, strengthening the immune system, cheering.” I’ll tell you that walking on a pit of pine cones is not cheering. Ugh. I made it all the way around the track, and Mer made it halfway before she sensibly opted out. We both then waded in the (presumably) mineral water basin, which also had a couple of different materials on the floor.
We waked though town in the general direction of our hotel, walking through a very tidy brick square. We got to the edge of the park again and took the sculpture trail walk back home. We got back a little after 2:00, which gave us some rest time before our relaxation time – I had a scheduled massage at 3:15, and Mer had one at 4:35. Those went about as you would expect – pretty nice, especially after two weeks of miles of walking.
Then supper in the hotel, and back outside. I wanted to see if boats were touring the river, but they don’t seem to do so at 7:30, so we went back to aimless wandering. We went toward anything we found interesting – parks, sculptures, flowers, chocolate bars in a market. The after-dinner stroll was about an hour, ending back home at the hotel.
And that’s it. We need to be heading toward Vilnius about 11:30 tomorrow, so we can sleep in and take it easy before the two flights that get us back to Newark. We get back in late enough that we’ll need to spend the night near Newark, but then, Lord willing, we’ll be back home Wednesday afternoon, to family, friends, kitties, routines, and cultural comforts. Because we are both very lucky people.