When you’re on a road trip (through the Baltics, or anywhere, really), one of the challenges in keeping things interesting is finding places to stop in between your destinations. I can say from experience that this can be difficult when you’re driving, for example, the vast stretch of land in Southern Idaho – just flat enough to be totally boring, and conservative enough to be pretty scary. However, when driving from Klaipeda to Vilnius in Lithuania, as we did on the last day of our Baltic Road Trip Honeymoon ™, we found no lack of interesting/kitschy/somber roadside attractions to keep us entertained.
The Hill of Crosses
The Hill of Crosses is located just north of the city of Šiauliai in North Central Lithuania. I know that every time I talk about a church or other religious site, I preface with the fact that I am not a religious person. Let me repeat that, I am most certainly not a religious person. That said, I very much enjoyed visiting the Hill of Crosses. Gift shop aside, the site was very impressive. Hundreds of thousands of crosses piled on top of one another as a monument to the nation’s Catholicism. It is uncertain when folks started placing crosses there – Wikipedia says sometime in the mid 19th century. The real action at the Hill of Crosses, though, took place when Lithuania was under the Soviets. The story goes that the Soviets tried many times to destroy the monument – burning the crosses, bulldozing the hill, etc. But the Lithuanians continued to put crosses there in silent religious protest to the atheist Soviet regime. 
All of this said, the place was still creepy as hell. The feeling in the air was one less of celebration, and more of somber remembrance of hardships experienced by Lithuanian people in the past. Definitely worth visiting, even if you are as jeebus-averse as myself.
The Hill itself is slightly out of the way if you’re going directly from Klaipeda-Kaunas-Vilnius, but not more than an hour or so total. It’d actually be more convenient to get there if you’re driving from Riga directly to Vilnius, as Šiauliai sits on the main road between the two cities. A great day drive could potentially go Riga-Rundale Palace-Hill of Crosses-Vilnius (or that same itinerary in reverse).
Soviet Bus Stops
I wax poetic about my love for Soviet architecture quite frequently, but a little known fact is that this fascination I have with Soviet buildings started with a photo essay by Christopher Herwig on Soviet Bus Stops. His photo essay was later turned into a self-published book, which has recently been revamped and republished by Fuel Publishing – an awesome publishing house for anyone Soviet-obsessed. Some of their other books include one on Soviet Space Dogs, and another on Soviet cuisine.
Anyway, I attribute most of my ex-Soviet wanderlust to Herwig’s photography, so it was only appropriate that David and I keep a solid lookout for awesome Soviet-era bus stops while on our road trip. We were somewhat disappointed in the lack of fun stops in Estonia and Latvia, but Lithuania did us right.
When driving through rural Lithuania, keep your eyes peeled – you never know when one of these beauties will pop up. I jolted David awake more than once trying to pull over in time to get a good photo.
IX Fortas
The Ninth Fort is located just outside the Lithuania’s second city of Kaunas. Prior to visiting, I had discovered this place on Atlas Obscura as housing a Soviet Monument “to the victims of fascism” (the irony was certainly not lost on us). What we didn’t know, however, was that the Ninth Fort also was home to a WWII Nazi concentration camp.
The Ninth Fort was first used as a Lithuanian resistance stronghold against the invading Soviets, and then later used for mass executions of Soviets and Jews from the Kaunas ghetto. When we arrived, we thought it was strange that there were many tour buses there. It turns out, many European and American Jews visit the site as part of Jewish heritage tours. As bystanders previously unaware of the site’s true history, learning of its dark past without any mental preparation was quite a blow. We were, of course, happy to have learned about the site’s history, but not having adequate time to mentally prepare oneself for visiting a freaking Nazi concentration camp was difficult to say the least.
The Ninth Fort is extremely conveniently located, right on the road between Klaipeda and Vilnius, as well as on the main thoroughfare between Riga and Vilnius. The Soviet-era Monument is stunning and haunting, and taking time to pay ones respect at the site of the concentration camp is rewarding as well.
We ended up spending so much time at the Ninth Fort that we scrapped our plans to visit what’s arguably Lithuania’s most popular attraction: the Trakai Island Castle.
“No big deal,” we thought, as we pulled over to take pictures of another prize bus stop in the middle of nowhere, Lithuania.
Have you been or do you want to go to Lithuania? What are your favorite sites there?
