Editor's note: When he isn't tending to business at the racetrack, Milwaukee Mile Chairman Craig Stoehr is an avid traveler who regularly visits exotic lands and major cities across the globe. He has agreed to share his adventures with OnMilwaukee.com readers.
VILNIUS, Lithuania -- We woke in Riga and took a taxi to the airport to rent a car, which we drove to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Lithuania is another of the Baltic States, independent since 1991, but a former state of the Soviet Union, like Latvia and Estonia.
Upon our arrival three hours later in Vilnius, it took us about an hour to navigate the maze of streets that make up the Old City, finally finding our hotel, the Radisson, after much difficulty. Upon check-in, Kolja and Nina learned, much to their consternation, that Lithuania was smoke-free.
We spent the next several hours walking around the Old City, checking out the street vendor offerings and various churches, finally parking ourselves at an Italian restaurant, where we had an excellent meal along with friendly service, watching the locals and mostly Russian and Ukrainian tourists walk by.
Next we walked for a bit, stopping at a cafe for several glasses of wine, where we did some people watching. While certainly much larger and appearing to be more active than Riga, none of us found Vilnius to be as charming as Riga, yet the Old City was large and vibrant.
As we sat at the cafe, we were befriended by several locals who offered to show us the Vilnius hotspots on Sunday evening (apparently, there was only one). We then visited St. Germain, a wine bar that we were told had been frequented by English actor Jeremy Irons last year during the filming of a movie, where we enjoyed a bottle of white wine and several glasses of 39, the local national liquor.
Then it was off to bed, as we were due to rise early, drive back to Riga and catch an early afternoon flight to Simferopol, Ukraine, one of the central points in the Crimea -- the Russian Riviera on the Black Sea -- with a Russian airplane flight looming in the days ahead.
