You ever need just a day or two away? Not a couple days break, not a holiday, not a couple days of doing fun stuff but at home, a day or two just… away. Well, a couple weeks ago that’s where I found myself. So when a friend of mine told me he was going to Belarus for the Jewish new year, of course I immediately told him… no.

I unfortunately couldn’t afford to go away for the holiday, but damn was it that upsetting! I’d already been feeling the need to get away for a bit, and now, after getting invited somewhere, I couldn’t take the opportunity.

Or could I? My friend had mentioned that he was flying through a town called Kaunas in Lithuania, and that flights there were super cheap. Now, though I had heard of the town, I didn’t know of anything to see and do there, which, if you know me well or have seen my google maps (well, the app, you can’t even see the map itself with all the saved icons), you’ll know is quite rare. But not knowing anything about a destination (for once) really got me transfixed, and once my travel bug is piqued, I have to do something about it.

So, even though my friend would only be with me for a few hours, and I hadn’t a clue what there was to do, I booked a flight.

For 6 AM the coming morning.

See mum? I told you I was a spontaneous guy.

At 3:30 AM, after a whopping two hours of sleep, I “woke up” (not that it was much of a sleep), to Julian Casablancas asking me “what ever happened?”. For those who don’t know, that’s my alarm. For those who do know; First of all, don’t judge me, it’s 11pm at a bar full of yuppies somewhere. Secondly… want to exchange playlists?

After that rude awakening, I quickly showered, dressed, and had a super quick breakfast, before getting picked up by my good friend Tommy T (not his actual name, he just thinks he’s the Jewish Al Capone¹.) At 4am the drive from Hackney to Luton is usually 40 minutes. Add a replacement tire and heavy rain though, and that quickly becomes an hour. Maybe “quickly”, isn’t the right word here you know…

But fear not friends! An hour is more than enough time in Luton when you have the great Luton expert Tommy T as your guide! Twenty minutes after parking, we were in the boarding line for our flight to cold cold Kaunas. Looking back, I’m pleasantly surprised the flight took off on time, well done Ryanair, not bad for an 18 quid flight.

It was a fairly smooth flight, with Elvis rising from the dead out of the back bathroom and challenging the stewardess to a dance off.

Hold on a second, that must have been a dream, guess the flight was smooth after all.

We landed in Kaunas at 11am and were out of the small airport in less than 20 minutes. Getting from the airport to the town centre is simple and affordable, with a public bus that runs from the airport through the historic and modern town centres. A ticket costs a single euro (cash only).

We got off the bus at “Studenty Skveras” which I assume means “Student’s Square”, as there was a beautifully clean looking open space just across the street from the stop (it sounding the same is definitely another reason). From here to our hostel, The Monk’s Bunk, was just a four minute walk.

Those four minutes were enough for us to see that Kaunas was not what we had expected. The first thing that stood out to me, was how the streets were sparkling clean! Everything just looked, for lack of a better word, fresh². The city was also very modern looking, although we’d soon find out that it was our area in particular and that there were plenty more “historically accurate” parts of town.

After a bit of a search (the hostel is in one of a few small, hard to find courtyards) we made it to the Monk’s Bunk, where the amazing Victor gave us an full rundown of absolutely everything to do in the city. Like, seriously, everything, what a guy you are Vic. *Can you, the reader, please applause for Vic wherever you are. Thank you.

Now that we were settled, it was finally exploring time! But first; CAFFEINE!! We headed back to what I’m going to call the student square, (oh come on, it’s not like you can spell in Lithuanian either okay!), and into Vero Cafe, which had come highly recommended by Vic. We got ourselves Cappuccinos, or rather, I got myself a cappuccino and Tommy T said “I’ll take whatever he took”, and settled in a corner to study the map Vic had enhanced with his sage advice. Talking of the devil (and there’ll be plenty more of that to come), just then Vic walked in, said hi, asked what coffee we had chosen, told us we should have asked for the “somefancystrandofcoffeeIcan’tremember”, then went to sit in his own little corner. Well damn, these coffee connoisseurs are really particular aren’t they?

From there we started out on what we intended on being a loop through the most picturesque and notable parts of the city. First stop was the Church of St. Michael, though we took a roundabout route to get there, passing some cool street art (spoiler, there’s a lot more to come) and a really randomly placed wooden building which, due to us being both super tired (the coffee hadn’t kicked in yet), we didn’t venture in (a major regret of mine, please don’t rub it in).

The church itself was impressive, though I wouldn’t call it spectacular. It’s what I’d call very aesthetically pleasing. I should note that we didn’t actually enter the church, so perhaps the interior is something to write home about. In the square surrounding the church were some cool sculptures, including one that reminded me distinctly of the Matrix.

From the church to the old town, the next goal in our little loop, there’s one long pedestrian only road, which is the city’s main road for tourism. It’s also where our hostel’s courtyard led to. So we popped in to fill our water bottles and use the gentleman room. We thought we’d be in and out, but once inside and out of the refreshingly chilly air, Tommy realised just how tired he’d become and decided to turn it in for a few hours. Turns out the crazy man had one slept one hour of the past 36! Maybe if we’d had the coffee Vic had recommended, you remember the one, the “somefancystrandofcoffeeIcan’tremember”, he’d have had the energy to get some exploring in. After all, he was off to Vilnius and from there to Minsk the next morning.

Well luckily, if travelling solo is a crime, I’d be doing life, so five minutes later, I’d convinced a Belgian guy who had literally just showed up at the hostel to spend the rest of the afternoon aimlessly wandering. (Ok, so he didn’t need any convincing as he’d been about to ask me the same anyway, I just thought it made me sound like a salesman!).

Back on the streets³, me and my new Belgian bud, let’s call him blonde Tintin (he bares no resemblance to Tintin, I’m just a big fan of calling anyone who’s Belgian “Tintin”), made a slight detour from my original route to check out the “art yard”. The Art Yard is a residential courtyard completely covered by some of the best street art I’ve ever come across. Created by resident artist Vytenis Jakas⁴, the art yard is a gem. Trying to spot as many cool hidden details as possible is a large part of the fun, so I won’t give a detailed description of the art itself. What I will tell you is that the yard sure packs a whole lot of charm for how small it is, so make sure you give yourself some time.

Oh fine I guess I can at least show you a bit of the charm:

From the Art Yard, we at long last made our way to the old town. The cobbled streets and deserted back alleys held a unassuming charm as we let ourselves get lost in them. As I often say; the best way to explore any old town is to wander it with your only map/sense of direction being the tip of the tallest building”.

I wouldn’t say the old town of Kaunas is what makes it worth visiting though, as once again the real highlights here were the many street art installations including on of some old guy having a smoke that covered an entire building!

Kaunas Castle is just outside of the old town, right on the river, but it was closed on Monday. We did find a random punching machine just by it though, so em, a win is a win…?

Finally, my lack of sleep started catching up to me, so Tintin and I started making our way back, passing through a beautiful park on the way where local teens were training to become the next Sabonis on the many basketball courts. These Baltic kids looked intimidatingly good and large so we didn’t risk getting posterised before dinner. Never⁵ get posterised before dinner!

Back at the hostel, I spent two hours fruitlessly trying to fall asleep, to no avail. I guess I’m just not a napper⁶. After giving up on my endeavours, I went with the finally awake Tommy to grab a bite to eat, then headed to a groovy gastropub expertly themed to Breaking Bad. The place is called Baking Mad and if you’re either a fan of the ol’ Heisenberg or just looking for a cool place to eat/drink, I really recommend this sweet little spot.

And then… Finally… I fell asleep.

Day 2

Of course I forgot to set my alarm.

At a quarter to twelve, I woke up to realise I had just fifteen minutes to the 12pm check out. This was where packing only a tiny backpack came in handy, as I checked out with fourteen minutes to spare. Kachow!

As fast as I’d been able to check out, I still had to shower, and in a small hostel like the Monks Bunks, that unfortunately meant over a 20 minute wait (this is the one problem I had with the hostel). By the time I was ready to grab a brunch, it was already 1pm (I’d waited for Tommy too), meaning I would only be able to go to one of attraction that day. My choice was between the “9th Fort of the Kaunas Fortress”, a historically significant and sombre site, and “The Museum of the Devil”, which is, wait for it; A museum about the devil⁷🤯!! My choice was made easy when I found out that the 9th Fort was 45 minutes away. Besides, there are countless historical museums and remembrances all around Europe, but when on earth (and where) was I going to see a Museum of the damn Devil!?

See what I did there? Damned… Devil?

Dayum son.

Before heading to the museum, I went with Tommy to grab a QUASSUAAAA⁸ and a coffee, and made another stop at the art yard because man that place was cool! Kaunas is actually known for it’s coffee culture so we ended up going to a couple different places and really running down the clock until Tommy’s 3pm bus to Vilnius

I wasn’t really sure what this place was about, besides well, Devil. Turns out, it is actually the worlds largest collection of devil sculptures! It was started as a small collection in the private home of Lithuanian artist Antanas Žmuidzinavičius, who once received a sculpture of a devil as a gift and decided to collect them because… Why the hell not?!⁹

The museum itself was definitely interesting and hella unique, but at the end of the day, was just a large collection of devil sculptures and memorabilia. For eight euros, I wasn’t disappointed, especially with the extremely helpful audio guide, but my socks weren’t blown off either, and I didn’t get to make a deal with the devil.

By now it was evening and the other museums and attractions were closed, so I spent the rest of my time in Kaunas back doing my favourite thing; simply exploring. I had some supermarket snacks, bought a couple souvenirs, photographed the city at night (the church in particular is brilliantly lit up), and searched for more street art (seriously! the city is jam packed with the stuff!).

Thus, at not so long last, it was time for me to grab the 10 pm bus to the airport for my flight home, where I watched Arsenal beat PSG¹⁰ and had my flight on W!zz air delayed by first one, then two, then three hours. Yeah, I landed in London at 5am and got home at 7:30, with work at 10. Never flying W!zz Air again!

Hey! Hey! You! You there! Don’t forget;

Thundercougarfalconbird!

And don’t, you, forget it.

1. Although, I’d assume that would actually be Bugsy Malone ↩︎
2. So clean (so fresh and so clean, clean) ↩︎
3. No, not like that guys, I told you, I’m reformed! ↩︎
4. At this point my computer kept auto-correcting the poor guys sir name to Jackass ↩︎
5. Like, NEVER!! ↩︎
6. “I nap, but I’m not a napper though” ~ Supa Hot Fiya, allegedly ↩︎
7. And the crowd erupts at this groundbreaking twist!! ↩︎
8. Also known as a croissant ↩︎
9. HE’S DONE IT AGAIN!!! HE CAN’T BE STOPPED! ↩︎
10. CAMONNNNNN!!!! ↩︎