Summer of Slow Travel

Oh dear, today was a long day. We had a 3 hour drive from Vilnius to Riga, but made two cool, but longish stops.

The first was The Hills of Crosses. No one knows why people started thinking of this hill as sacred. But for years people have put up crosses. The Soviets did not like religion, so bulldozed the entire hill down..twice. The last time was in the 1970’s.

Lithuania is still fairly Catholic. Max took these pictures and captured the feeling better then me.

200,000 thousand crosses.

We went on to Jelgeva Palace. Built in the early 1700’s-designed by the same Architect that designed the Winter Palace. Fun to see a scaled down version. It’s been lived in since…though for a little while by Napoleon’s Army. It was pretty run down when the Soviets started to restore it in 1970. The Latvian government has continued, though the house has been able to pay for itself.

This one of of those places that allowed me to feel history. It felt more accessible the a lot of restorations.

Yes, this would be Rocco.

We look a little tired in this picture.. I fell hard yesterday afternoon, but hit most everything and didn’t cause any serious damage to anything. I’ll be back to normal in a day or two. Max may never recover..he just saw me crumpled on the ground. Damm it.

Love,oh one artsy picture