May 8 - Palanga Amber Museum, Lithuania.

Once we started driving we decided our first stop would be one of the beaches in Lithuania, in search of amber. It was a nice sunny day with only a small amount of wind, yet the weather was still cold. J-ME found a large piece of what looked to us like amber.

Here is the lovely beach we roamed, again we were the only ones on the beach.

That is, except for our little friend who showed up.

And then one of the birds who visited us.

Today we wished Latvia good bye

And enter into Lithuania (Lietuva)

 and drove into Lithuania to go see the Amber Museum in Palanga. Again, like much of the Baltic states we have seen and experienced, the great road signs vanish the minute you need them. We followed our directions exactly and still could not find the address. So when we saw a large group of school kids walking down the street we pulled over and asked for help. J-Me just said "Do any of you speak English?" Almost all of them spoke english, but one girl of about 12 pushed to the front and took over the conversation, not letting anyone else participate. (there's the future dictator of Lithuania, or at least a wife).

The Museum was on the grounds of the Botanical Gardens and when we walked up appeared to be closed for renovations. But we found a side door open and we were able to get in. It took about an hour to see what was on display as most of the museum was closed off for said renovations. Supposed to be open until 5 o'clock, as we were wrapping up a book purchase at 3:30 they shut off the lights and closed. They had some very nice specimens showing portions of various plants and bugs. They had one very excellent specimen of a lizard. We have never seen one, so that was nice to see. Then, they had a room of very large pieces of amber. Some being larger then a basketball. There was a room of ancient items made with amber; bronze items and other misc pottery. In this room is where they had very old trade beads of amber. These are what we refer to as African Trade Amber. The next room had items made from amber most likely starting about 1920 thru around 1997. There were beads, jewelry boxes, necklaces, bracelets , earrings and brooches. The last room was the modern amber items for sale and it even had some specimens. The specimens included the magnification close up and the postcard showing the insect which was inside. Most of the jewelry was very normal to us with some highly european modern styles. The one item interesting to J-ME was the very large round 20mm red amber beads, but they were much too high in price.

This amber piece has a lizard in it. They said it was the only one ever found.

 Showing an old cutting bench, where they carved beads, sculptured pieces and more. 

And now for one of the very reasons we came to see this wonderful museum- Old Amber beads!!!

Then some early made modern jewelry.

And then some very nice large amber beads.

Then we drive to Kaunas. The drive to Kaunas was only 250 Km, but felt long. We were tired. As expected, even with extensive directions from maps, internet, hotel directions, etc… signage vanished immediately we entered the area of Kaunas. We got hopelessly lost and asked a young couple for help. The man hid in his car and the women spoke enough english to give us wrong information. In desperation we pulled into a gas station  and parked next to a police car. Asking for help, one cop typed in the hotel's address into his cell phone and told us to follow their car. After a 10 minute car chase across Kaunas, through some of the worst residential areas and over the worst roads I have ever driven on we arrived at a run down, ghetto apartment complex. The cop said we have arrived and drove off, leaving us. It certainly wasn't our 4 star hotel. Our hotel turned out to hidden behind some trees next door, and it was 4 star, if not 5 star. Absolutely fabulous! Slap bang in the middle of a ghetto.

A couple beers later and a wonderful traditional Lithuanian dinner and most of the stress of finding our hotel had worn off.

Now we needed to find the International flea market in the morning and more importantly how to get out of Kaunas the following morning. One step at a time.