As an aside... it's not difficult to ferry to Stockholm -- s'long's you do choose the "cruise" variant and, unless you want to travel "lux", you should be prepared to bunk with strangers in gender-specific cabins. The cruise variant has you travelling overnight, spending a mere 6-7 hours in Stockholm, then night-boating it back to Tallinn. Even though these cruises depart daily from Tallinn, you're not invited to divide up cruises into one-way fares in order to spend time in Sweden. One-way options seem to be available, but information about these is kept under wraps, the complex algorithms used to arrive at prices for the many cabin/berth configurations and fractions thereof (e.g. things like "Q2, A4, B2/4" to the power of many n's) aren't explained, nor is the sum of any of these equations bookable online (instructions unavailable in either English or Russian). Despite all this, a company service representative will be happy to frustrate you and also answer a portion of your questions in person or by lengthy email correspondence.
So we hopped on a bus, this one to Vilnius, capital of Lithuania. It was soon apparent that the Lithuanians are fond of making their venues into "attractions", thus, designing them according to unusual themes and surprising motifs. In terms of interior decor, every surface is considered, nothing left unadorned, every opportunity for audacity, sometimes gaudiness, certainly extremity, always fun, is welcomed and exploited. This regiment of table-heaving gnomes and expanse of astro-turfed wall at cafe Gras'as faces the street, though the bulk of the venue is downstairs in a labyrinth of carpeted and chandeliered caves.
We took a trip by city bus to Vilnius's outer burbs to visit "Kukuruzininkas", a cafe-bar built around an airplane theme, if not an actual airplane. Full cockpit and propeller on display, the rest is made up of airplane seats, an interior shell, airplane parts, pictures and manuals. Here I am getting ready for take-off, and again, settling into the in-flight program after the flight crew passed by with its cabin service.
We'd been warned that service was be horrible in Lithuania, but we didn't experience that at all. We did notice that a few places (ironically, not the airplane restaurant) had buttons/doorbells at your table that said "Please Press For Service". The most ridiculously over-the-top place we visited was "Cili Kaimas", a massive three-storey food-and-beverage-plex with a gigantic tree growing up from its subterranean depths, a live rooster cock-a-doodling at the entrance, an open fish pond and snake aquarium. Click here and choose "Kaimas" for an unfortunately unrepresentative peek at the restaurant's interior and a peruse what's on offer for tapas in the Lithuanian style (liberal use of smoked pork ears). The menu was the size of a medieval manuscript and had full-page glossy ads for featured wines. Dishes were referred to by such brain-teasing riddles as "Nude Maids in Sweet-Flags," "Strong For A Long Time" and "So That Evening Does Not Prolong".The most famous Lithuanian dish is "cepelinai" -- literally, zeppelins -- after which they're named. Think gummy potato paste football filled with a chunk of meat or curd -- and you've got it. Not that "dirigible", really, especially since they're additionally weighed down with sour cream and cracklings sauce. We tried them the once.
Let it be known that we did more than eat and drink on our trip to Lithuania. After 2 days in Vilnius, we boarded another bus. Destination: Gruto Parkas.
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