vic.gedris.org

Exploring the Trakai Island Castle, in Trakai, Lithuania.

Kernavė, Lithuania: Yellow House

Here's a cute yellow farm house in Kernavė, Lithuania. As I mentioned before, I love colourful houses like this, especially yellow ones.

Kernavė, Lithuania

It was a cloudy and somewhat rainy day when we went to Kernavė, Lithuania. This village of just a few hundred people is one of Lithuania's best-known archeological sites, due to its piliakalniai (hill forts), secret underwater roads, and being a one-time capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Unfortunately, due to the cloudy and rainy weather, my photos of the beautiful countryside around the piliakalniai didn't turn out as well as I had hoped.

Vilnius: Trijų Kryžių paminklas

During our second tour around Vilnius, we climbed Trijų Kryžių Kalnas (The Hill of Three Crosses). Check out the Wikipedia link for the whole legend behind it!

Needless to say, this is one of Vilnius' most visible and best-known monuments. It's easily visible from many parts of the city, and also offers a spectacular view of the Vilnius Old Town below.

Aušros Vartai, Vilnius, Lithuania

One of the first places we visited in Vilnius was Aušros Vartai, which means "Gates of Dawn". This is the last remaining gate into the Vilnius Old Town, and contains a chapel with a famous painting of Mary.

Vilnius: Abandoned Green House

On our first day in Vilnius, Lithuania, after meeting up with some of my relatives and exploring the old town for a while, Kotryna took us to a wonderful bar/restaurant to relax with some wine and cheese.

This photo is not of the bar, but it's neighbour. It was a curious sight, because as we sat on the shaded patio of this bar enjoying our wine and cheese in the middle of a very well restored old town, this beautiful old house next door was abandoned and decaying. It's unfortunate, since with such a great location and wonderful look, you'd think it would be put to good use. Apparently it was a bar or restaurant recently, but now it's just full of junk etc. I hope someone can take it over and restore it.

More photos of Lithuania soon! It was a fantastic trip, and I'm really enjoying going through my photos to pick the ones for posting here.

Vic and Jen in Trakai, Lithuania

Wow, it has been almost 2 years since I last updated my "blog" on March 6th, 2008. I have been pretty good at keeping my photo album updated with new pics though, so that sort of filled the gap.

It's not that I didn't have anything to write about. In fact, these last couple of years have been some of the busiest and most fun times of my life. Without getting into a long play-by-play of the last two years of my life, here's a selection of highlights, with links to related photos (of course):

• July 12 2008: Jen and I got married!
• July 18-27 2008: Honeymoon bike tour, Lake Erie
• July 2009: European vacation (Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and all over Lithuania)
• Ongoing: I maintain a community website for my neighbourhood, and love to take photos all over this part of town. We also have a great new park/trail here: The West Toronto Railpath.
• Urban Exploration photography: General Electric, NRI, High Park house, Firestone, Karate Garage, abandoned church, Don Jail, Concord Floral, Park Plaza Hotel, Tower Automotive.

I have made a bit of a promise (or is that a challenge?) to myself to keep this website updated much more frequently from now on. The main thing I want to do is maintain a photo blog in addition to the huge pile of photos in my complete album. My goal with the photo blog is to post a photo every day, along with the occasional bits of other "stuff" that I might find interesting. I hope you'll enjoy it too.

And please feel free to leave comments on any of my posts. The fact that so many people are commenting here about pigeon eggs is kind of amusing, but I'd like some variety too.

Cheers!
Vic