Tag: Kaunas

  • Vilnius to Kaunas Rail Journey – LTG

    Vilnius to Kaunas Rail Journey – LTG

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    There weren’t any cheap flights from Vilnius, nor indeed any cheap hotels, so I decided to splash out just over £8 on a first class rail ticket from Vilnius to Kaunas to fly back from there.

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    Despite ongoing maintenance, this was a clean and organised railway station.

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    The station hall.

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    Um, decoration.

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    Signage says they’re doing something exciting here soon. Perhaps it’ll be a Greggs.

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    My ticket got me free access into the VIP lounge.

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    Very smart.

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    This is a rail network on top of its game…..

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    There were snacks and drinks available on a self-service basis which were keenly priced.

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    There was a meeting room and private toilets available in the lounge.

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    My train was the 18:47.

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    There’s the rather glorious double decker train.

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    You could reserve seats for free when booking, so I went for the one with the table on the left. The carriage remained quiet and no-one sat opposite me.

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    The table on the opposite side to me. There was also wi-fi and a power point for every seat, all clean and comfortable.

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    An old locomotive at Vilnius.

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    There was an early ticket check and everyone in First was given a bottle of water which was handy. There was also a buffet downstairs if customers wanted to buy any food or drink.

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    Stations en route.

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    And safely in Kaunas.

    For the money, this was excellent value and everything worked as it should. The journey took around 75 minutes and was entirely stress-free, it’s made me want to return to Lithuania to visit all of the major cities in the country by train. Very lovely.

  • Wizz Air (Kaunas to London Luton)

    Wizz Air (Kaunas to London Luton)

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    A relatively early morning as I needed to get the bus from central Kaunas to the airport. It’s the rather excellent price of €0.7 by card, but I had a euro coin left over and so decided to splash out with that as that’s the slightly more expensive cash fare. It’s a 40 minute journey, so certainly value for money. Incidentally, I’ve just realised that I didn’t write any of my trip to Kaunas (I visited late last year) up on this blog so that’s another little project that needs resolving.

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    They’re still busy extending the airport,the work should be completed later this year.

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    That’s my flight, the 11:10 to London Luton. Incidentally, the reason that I am writing these flights up with some efficiency, whereas other things fall behind, is that they’re so similar I get the details muddled up. Let’s be honest, once you’ve flown Wizz Air four times in a week, it’s all shades of fuchsia (or whatever colour their planes are) and faint diesel.

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    Spotlessly clean with seats and power points everywhere.

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    The gate was busy, but that’s because they are short on space, but that problem is resolved soon. As an unexpected highlight, the border control agent decided to count the stamps in my passport. This turned into a rather intense session of EU arithmetic, during which she seemed briefly convinced I’d overstayed. After fifteen minutes of counting, squinting and light diplomacy, we all agreed I was well within my 90-day limit. Thanks to the efficiencies of Brexit, I have 90 EU stamps in my passport so this is not a quick calculation, but the new integrated IT system will be rolling into place soon.

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    We were sent outside to board the aircraft before the arriving passengers had managed to get off, which did mean we had a wait on the airport apron of around 25 minutes. I’m not too fussed about this, I like the breeze and the seem of diesel fumes, but for those with kids it’s probably sub-optimal. Especially if they run off, although none did that today.

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    The new extension to the airport is visible on the airside.

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    And getting ready to board G-WUKV, the usual Wizz Air Airbus A321. I do check, from my partial records, if I’ve been on an aircraft before and this one took me from Belgrade to London Luton last year.

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    The seating Gods gave me a window seat and I got to see Amsterdam as we flew overhead.

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    And safely back into London Luton airport, on time and with a very short queue at border control. As ever, this was another well run flight from Wizz Air and cost £8.99 thanks to Multi Pass. All rather lovely.