Tuesday, August 30, 2016

The Castle at Trakai

We are enjoying our time in Vilnius and will do a post soon but as it was a warm sunny day we headed out of town to visit the fairy tale castle at Trakai. It was an easy trip by bus although we did have a 2 km walk at each end

The town itself is very traditional. The houses are made of timber and run down to the lake. There is a series of fresh water lakes with islands and the castles were built around them.


                                       Rob at a wooden sculpture on the way to the castle.


                                                         The lakes were very beautiful.


                                             There were rows of old wooden buildings.


                              We also stopped at a small Russian Orthodox Church on the way.

We finally reached the castle. There have been fortifications on the site since the 11th century but the brick Gothic castle dates from the 14th century and was built as the summer residence for the Grand Dukes of Lithuania. We have lots of castle photos!


                                         No we went by bus and that is not our new yacht.


                                               Gail outside the entry to the castle.


                                         The castle is built around a large courtyard.


                                             Rob at the bridge across the entry moat.


                                                       Can you spot Gail?

There are also many museum style rooms with many interesting exhibits.



       The treasury. Many of the coins were found a few years ago buried in the forests.

 
                                                                Many treasures.


                                           Rob checking out the vacant throne!

We had a great lunch stop with wonderful views. We had dishes from the Karain minority group. They originally came from Turkey and their religion relates to Judaism.


                                                 The view across the lake.


                                          The view from our lunch table.


                                                                And a local beer!


                                                        A final photo of the castle.

2 comments:

Kate said...

I'd head out to those forests if I were you...

Miss Di said...

But there might be bears in the woods. Better to stay in the city!