Vilnius Travel Forum

Hi,
Can anyone help me the following?
I have been working on my travel itinerary for Baltic nations and Helsinki
for August. Thanks to some members who responded to my inquiry
posted in this Forum, some of my routes have been fixed almost definite.

1) Bus route:a day trip from Vilnus to Trakai via Kaunas on 25th of August
I checked every likely website where I might find a proper bus schedule.
Unfortunately I have not got any luck yet. Is a day trip between these cities
possible? I think a day trip between Vilnius and Kaunas might be more than
enough in terms of consuming time for a day trip. So I added Trakai inbetween.

2) A day trip between Vilnius and Kaunas is not available?
I so found on http://www.eurolines.ee/en/node/150. It said as "No available
departure on day (2009-08-25)", which is unlikely to me...??

3) Coaches and minibuses serving a route between Vilnius-Kaunas
On the other website, I found an possible route above. I would like to know thier time schedule: how often; where to take(...may not be as at the same
bus station as at internationl bus station); the prices; time of the first and the last bus from each station; any advice I should take into account...etc.

4) About Euro currency to be used in Baltic states
As for traveling in the Baltic states such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania,
are euro notes and coins available at present at any place, small shops and
local transport...etc? If so, paying in Euro is comparatively high compared with paying in the local currency?

5) Currency Exchange Booths
Are there Currency Exchange booths available right after I got off the international bus before moving into the first city of next country? I might otherwise get stuck there!

Any advise is much appreciated.
Thanks,

Kuniko

Hi.

1) "...Bus route:a day trip from Vilnus to Trakai via Kaunas on 25th of August..."
Trakai is not on the same road as going from Vilnius to Kaunas. It is same west direction, but 2 different roads. Go to Trakai as early as possible and you'll see at the bus station whether there are any buses to or via Kaunas from Trakai. It's possible, but I doubt it. You'd probably need to go to Prienai first and to change there to another bus to Kaunas. Or (much more realistic and reasonable in my opinion) to come back to Vilnius and take a bus to Kaunas.

2) "...A day trip between Vilnius and Kaunas is not available?..."
Available. If you need necessarily a bus of the "eurolines", then I'm not sure, this company is just an owner of their bus fleet (among the others), the routes are provided by each municipality branch called Autobusu stotis (Bus Station) which can be operated by anybody who won a contest. Usually it is operated by some reliable and proficient company.

3) "...Coaches and minibuses serving a route between Vilnius-Kaunas..."
Every 15 - 40 minutes every day untill 19:00, then the buses become infrequent and after 21:00 very infrequent.
"Red" platforms No 1 and 2 in Vilnius and No 1 in Kaunas ("Blue" platforms in Vilnius are for suburban buses).

4) "...About Euro currency to be used in Baltic states.."
The Euros are not accepted. The Euro is pegged to the local currency.

5) Currency Exchange Booths
Don't know. Just used my debit card at the shop in Latvija last week, then moved back.

Btw, in your previous topic there were recommendations to take a bus from Vilnius to Siauliai as if it was better. If you're going to Siauliai from Vilnius, the best (fastest and shortest) way to get there is by train early in the morning (train Vilnius-Siauliai-Klaipeda). There is no straight road Vilnius-Siauliai (as one can see on any map), but there is a straight railway. So, unless one necessarily need to go by bus for some reason, it is much more logical to take a train, as you need to go to Hill of Crosses as early as possible (as mentioned previously by others, the buses to Riga are not frequent and there are more buses in the first half of the day). Next, if you missed a bus from Siauliai to Riga, is quite possible that you can catch a bus in Panevezys, which is not far from Siauliai, and the all buses Vilnius-Riga go via Panevezys and stop there. Bur that info is just in case, simply you can combine the buses if you need it and when you need it.

"The Euro is pegged to the local currency"

Sorry, the local currency is pegged to the Euro :DDDD.

Eurolines is association of companies providing international bus travel. They very rarely provide local transportation.

Use
http://www.autobusustotis.lt/en
to find bus timetables from Vilnius and back. Hope you manage to use it even with poor English translations in there ("race" instead of "route" ???).

As correctly mentioned above Trakai is small regional city and fast Vilnius-Kaunas connections are not entering it. Most reasonable is go back to Vilnius.

Euro is not allowed to use for payments in Lithuania. Some shops/restaurants might advertise "We accept Euro", but A) they will use own exchange rate unfavourable to you, B) give back change in litas using the same rate.

There are not many independent Exchange offices in Lithuania. Banks provide this service in almost all offices. There are several bank offices around the bus terminal and railway station in Vilnius (these are just a square apart). As Litas is bound to EUR you will get about the same rate in all of them. You can change Litas to some Latas (for the arrival to Riga) in Vilnius - shop around for the best rate.

Hello, I agree that probably the best way is to get to Trakai and back to Vilnius, then to Kaunas. From Vilnius to Kaunas you will be able to get buss even late in the evening. There are also a lot of minivans (private companies) running from Vilnius to Kaunas from the buss station area.
Please, take a look for shedule : http://www.iticket.lt/lt and www.autobusustotis.lt


BUS TIMETABLE

BUSES TRAKAI - VILNIUS 8 stop at bus station 6.50d.d.š. 7.40 7.42 8.10 8.22 9.10d.d.š. 9.50 10.07 10.40 12.40 14.12 14.42 15.00 15.55 16.07 16.51s 16.57d.d.s. 17.30 p.s. 18.40 19.15 20.45

BUSES 9 stop at bus station 5.00d.d. 5.55d.d. 6.20d.d.š 7.00d.d.s. 7.30d.d. 8.00 10.05 11.10d.d. 11.40 13.00 13.40d.d. 14.30 15.45d.d. 16.40 17.10d.d.s. 18.00 20.00 21.30d.d.š.

d.d. – on working days, p – on Fridays,
s - on Sundays, š – on Saturdays

Schedules may be changed.

VILNIUS - TRAKAI
(from Vilnius )

BUSES From 6, 28, 29 stops at Vilnius Central bus station

6.45d. 7.10d.š. 7.50 8.30d. 8.50 9.25 10.20d. 10.40 11.00 11.55d. 12.25 13.30d. 13.50 14.40d. 15.30 16.10 16.50d. 17.30 17.55d. 18.30 19.10d. 19.30 19.50d. 20.35 21.30 22.15
TRAINS
4.28d.d. 5.33d.d. 6.15 7.47 12.15 13.10 15.40 17.39

d.d. – on working days, p – on Fridays,
s - on Sundays, š – on Saturdays

Schedules may be changed.

euro is not accepted in Baltic States, but some hotels take Euro. You can change currency in each bank (some of them work also on weekends in shopping centers untill 22:00). You can also take local money from bankomats, there are many of them in each of Baltic states and you can choose the language for using bancomat. There is ALWAYS English language choise, so you will not have problems ;-)

Hi there,

To brrr:
Thank you for your kind advice. Yes, you are right, there is no
point of wasting time - so much time for traveling to so less time
for staying at the hill of Crosses.
I would rather go to Trakai, then. Kaunas is must. I don't know
about Trakai but I wanted to add one more place to stop enroute to
Kaunas in a day trip. I am not sure if it's still worth...??

To r13:
Thank you for your useful information.
Yes, you are right, there is no point of wasting tim. The other
members responded to my inquiry have the same comment. So, I
decided to skip the Hill of Crosses..
Using http://www.autobusustotis.lt/en, I made a plan for a day
trip Vilnius-Trakai-Kaunas. It looked fine to me.

To aterola:
Thank you for your precise information.
The bus station where I should take a bus to/from, is located
apart depending on a type of bus such as internationl vs local,
minibus and minivans? If so, how do I know the difference?

With the help of kind and useful advice, I am getting my plan
in shape. Thank you all nice people above!!
Kuniko

Hello again,
the buss station is only one. The minivans stop somewhere arround the buss station and when you come to the buss station, probably some people will stand outside the station asking passangers if they go to Klaipeda, Palanga, or Kaunas. o there is kind of "live" advertising. If you say Kaunas, they will point you to the driver of the minivan and will take you to the car. It is save way, working for many years, alternative to big busses. My advice is to ask when they go, because it can be that you will wait for the moving for up to one hour. Minivans don't have shedule written, but they have agreements with each others, so if they say departure time, ussually it is exact. Also take to consideration, that bagage possibilities are better in the buss. Small minivan also takes lugages, but all people have many bags, can be a small problem.

"..minivans stop somewhere arround the buss station ..."

It was correct some time ago, and it still is sort of correct, but one should know, that those minivans were and are illegal, and last year Vilnius authorities banned them. Secondly, they were neither cheapper, nor faster. It was a good option if you needed to go immediatelly and there was no other choice at the moment.

"...The bus station where I should take a bus to/from, is located
apart depending on a type of bus such as internationl vs local,
minibus and minivans? If so, how do I know the difference?"

In Vilnius it is a 1 bus station (building) and place ("park") for the buses, divided in 2 separate parts with the lines of the stops in the middle. One line, a blue one, is for local (suburbian) buses, another line, a red one, is for intercity and international buses. Each "stop" is a separate "platform" (a site for the bus + the site for the passengers) with its timetable and the name of direction. So, the red platforms No 1 and No 2 are Kaunas direction ("Kauno kryptis"). Both. Trakai direction is somewhere in the middle. There is also a blue platform "Traku kryptis" - for local (suburbian) buses, they stop at every stop en route, some of them are zig-zagging from one village to another, and the final stop usually is Trakai itsef. Usually it takes some 10-30 min longer than by intercity bus. Buses on a red platform "Trakai direction" go various destinations, but all via Trakai, so Trakai is not a final stop.
Same system is everywhere, except that the bus stations are not divided into suburbian and intercity parts. Just go to the site of a needful direction and check the timetable. Thus, in Trakai, there is no "Kaunas direction", i guess, but there must be "Aukštadvaris" or "Prienai" direction (westwards). There also must be a "Vievis direction" ("Vievio kryptis"), and probably it may be an option for you, as Vievis is on a main highway to Kaunas, and every other bus Vilnius-Kaunas stops there. So check carefully at the spot the timetable of Vievis direction, and also ask about that at the Trakai information centre. There may be local buses not listed on the internet. Trakai-Vievis, then change to the bus to Kaunas may be your plan B.
So, the system is that you need to know the direction you need to go to (major towns around), and when you don't know exactly what direction should be, you need to look at the map and follow the main roads towards "your" destination - the closest major town or city is a "direction".