Day 36 - The Corgi Olympics

It was an early start this morning to get a quick bit of breakfast before walking the 3km to parkrun. Vingis Parkrun is (currently) the only Parkrun in Lithuania, and the fact that it begins with a V makes it even more popular for tourists.

The run itself was lovely - beautiful scenery around the park. It was perfect, apart from the mean hill near the end. Even worse, it was two laps, so I had to do the mean hill twice! I was very happy with my time though (about 40 seconds off my PB - which isn’t a lot at my pace!) and went to the cafe afterwards, where I got chatting to Matt, originally from the UK but now living in Lithuania with his wife and child, and Ieva, originally from North Carolina, but with Lithuanian parents and now doing her masters at the university of Vilnius. We chatted for quite a while, and Ieva mentioned that the Vilnius Corgi Race was taking place in the park this afternoon. Whilst I had planned to visit some museums, I have no regrets about my decision to prioritise the corgis!

I returned to my hotel to shower and change (yep, another 3km!) before heading back to the park in the afternoon. I did get a bus part of the way this time! After doing a bit of caching nearby, I met up with Ieva and her friend Tomas near the corgi races.

What an event it was! There were literally several thousand people there, sat in the park grandstand, and over a hundred corgis competitors.

There were competitions including a costume parade (I backed Batdog, but sadly it was not to be), a barking competition and even a puzzle competition, which sadly was over by the time we arrived!

The main event was the race though. There were 13 heats - some with the corgis showing impressive pace, and many others when the corgis ran the wrong way, or just lost interest! The semifinals and final were actually pretty competitive, with Mango the victor!

I said goodbye to Ieva and Tomas, and hoped to do some more caching in the park, but sadly was not super successful, so eventually headed back to my hotel. With over 27,000 steps so far today, I think I might just watch some football on the TV tonight!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 1 - It Starts……..

Image
Having been thinking and talking about this adventure for months, today rather crept up on me. As well being a little hurried in actually packing a rucksack for up to three months of travel (I had been organised with packing lists, just not the actually putting things in a bag bit), I was also a bit last minute in tying up loose ends at home, mainly the boring things, like sorting out my car tax that I realised expired whilst I am away. It was therefore also a bit of a late night doing the really important things, like finishing the hardback book I had no intention of travelling with, and downloading some shows to watch onto my Chromebook. But, after a bit of last minute re-packing (Do I really need that extra T-shirt? Probably not. Where did I put that charging cable?), my rucksack was ready to go, and I had sorted everything I needed to in my flat. I am pleased to report that I have not left anything in the fridge that is likely to be gross on my return. Then off through the rain to ...
Read more

Day 2 - Touristing it up in Brussels

Image
The Eurostar journey was pretty uneventful yesterday. Despite looking out of the window, I did not see any fish 🐠 as I crossed the Channel, and I made sure I was on the look-out for small boat crossings too.....  It was early evening when I arrived in Brussels. The metro system took me a few minutes (and one journey in the wrong direction) to figure out, but Google Maps did its thing and got me to my hotel safely. The hotel is near the Royal Galleries, close to the Grand Place, and it is pretty busy around as apparently this is a big weekend with Belgian National Day tomorrow.  An evening quest for food (success) was followed by a walk through said Royal Galleries and then a test of my photography skills at the Grand Place. It is, as the name suggests, pretty Grand. Pleasingly for me, there were lots of Geocaching AdLabs around for me to use to learn some history. My visit here was then followed up with some good wandering around, with the highlight undoubtedly the Brussels D...
Read more

Day 3 - Happy Belgian National Day!

Image
Yesterday evening was fairly quiet - a stroll to see Jeanneke Pis, all in the name of gender equality.... and then an ice-cream and soaking up some of the holiday vibes.  Today, in case you did not know, is Belgium's national day. I had read a bit about some celebration events, some of which I am hoping to see this evening, but I did not know that as I walked to find some breakfast this morning, within 100m of my hotel I would stumble upon the whole Belgian royal family arriving for the Te Deum mass at the St Michael and St Gudula Cathedral. Having previously sat opposite the Swedish royal family at a concert in Stockholm when visiting with Lizzy, I am starting to appreciate European royal families turning out for my visits.... Apparently it was King Philippe, Queen Mathilde, and their four children (Elisabeth, Eleonore, Gabriel and Emmanuel) who were there. You can read all about their outfits on the Daily Fail Online, if that's your thing.  Anyway, I enjoyed the experience, ...
Read more