WORLD MARATHON TOUR: LITHUANIA
2013 VILNIUS MARATHON, LITHUANIA: 4:19:18 (2013-09-15)
Photos:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/Biking-Viking-730374053784599/photos/?tab=album&album_id=736439309844740
Race report:
http://bikingviking.net/listing/vilnius-marathon-lithuania-2013-09-15/
LITHUANIA
Capital: Vilnius
Population: 2,99 million
Currency: Euro (EUR)
Famous people from Lithuania:
Arvydas Sabonis (basketball), Zydrunas Ilgauskas (basketball)
Fun facts about Lithuania:
According to a study made by a French scientist in 1989, Lithuania is in the geographical center of Europe.
Lithuanians were the last nation in Europe to convert to Christianity.
The Lithuanian language is more ancient than Greek, Latin, German, Celtic, or the Slav tongues. It belongs to the Indo-European group and is nearest to Sanscrit.
Some philologists generally agree that Lithuanian is the most ancient of all the living languages.
Lithuania is known as the land of storks, the national bird for the country, with about 13,000 pairs.
Making vodka from corn was first discovered by the Lithuanians.
Lithuania was the first to declare independence from the Soviet Union in 1990.
Basketball is the most popular sport. Several Lithuanians have become NBA players, maybe most famous being Arvydas Sabonis.
By the end of the XIV century, Lithuania was the largest country in Europe, and included Belarus and parts of Ukraine.
Vilnius University was the first University in the Eastern Europe.
Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs was born in Lithuania.
The mother of Pope John Paul II was of Lithuanian descent.
Logistic:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g274951-Vilnius_Vilnius_County-Vacations.html
There are plenty of great inexpensive options in Vilnius. Hostelworld has most of them listed. There are also great bus connections (luxury buses!) between the three Baltic capitals Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn. All three are very beautiful cities.
