A day on the bus

Today, we travelled to the Hill of Crosses and Rundale Palace in Latvia. We loaded onto the bus around 7:30 am and someone exploded out in song with "wheels on the bus go round and round..." Then, we drifted into counting storcks. Thankfully, they stopped at 100. A little later we unloaded in Siauliai to walk the streets and get a bite to eat before heading out to the Hill of Crosses. While there, it poured. Some folks ran for cover. Jude and I hid behind a tree and were spared briefly before we got soaked. It even hailed. Then, the sun came out and dried us off. Of course, our umbrellas were in the bus...
The Hill of Crosses...a little history lesson
The Hill of Crosses (Lithuanian: Kryžių kalnas (help·info)) is a site of pilgrimage about 12 km north of the city of Šiauliai, in northern Lithuania. The precise origin of the practice of leaving crosses on the hill is uncertain, but it is believed that the first crosses were placed on the former Jurgaičiai or Domantai hill fort after the 1831 Uprising.[1] Over the centuries, not only crosses, but giant crucifixes, carvings of Lithuanian patriots, statues of the Virgin Mary and thousands of tiny effigies and rosaries have been brought here by Catholic pilgrims. The exact number of crosses is unknown, but estimates put it at about 55,000 in 1990[2] and 100,000 in 2006.[3]








Rundāle Palace...
Gate of the palace
It was constructed in the 1730s to a design by Bartolomeo Rastrelli as a summer residence of Ernst Johann von Biron, the Duke of Courland. Following Biron's fall from grace--he got sent to Siberia for 22 years--the palace stood empty until the 1760s, when Rastrelli returned to complete its interior decoration.
After Duchy of Courland and Semigallia was absorbed by the Russian Empire in 1795, Catherine the Great presented the palace to Count Valerian Zubov, the youngest brother of her lover, Prince Platon Zubov. He spent his declining years there after the death of Valerian Zubov in 1804. His young widow, Thekla Walentinowicz, a local landowner's daughter, remarried Count Shuvalov, thus bringing the palace to the Shuvalov family, with whom it remained until the German occupation in World War I when the German army established a hospital and a commandant's office there.
The palace suffered serious damage in 1919 during the Latvian War of Independence. In 1920, part of the premises were occupied by the local school. In 1933, Rundāle Palace was taken over by the State History Museum of Latvia. It was dealt a serious blow after World War II, when the grain storehouse was set up in the premises and later, the former duke's dining room was transformed into the school's gymnasium. Only in 1972 was a permanent Rundāle Palace Museum established.[1]
The palace is one of the major tourist destinations in Latvia.
This place was built by the same architect that built Peterhof, Catherine's Palace and the Hermitage, so they are all rather similar. This one is a rather nice summer home...








And it rained here too. We must have caught the same storm on our trip north into Latvia. Earlier in the morning, we stopped for a "stretch break" at this Baron's house. Nice pad, but it's still in the restoration process and not open to the public.




Tomorrow, the students come to take entrance tests.
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Location:Pakruojo gatvė,Klaipėda,Lithuania