{"id":335,"date":"2018-01-15T18:08:36","date_gmt":"2018-01-15T17:08:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lithuanianstories.com\/en\/?page_id=335"},"modified":"2019-01-27T12:55:11","modified_gmt":"2019-01-27T11:55:11","slug":"lithuania-today","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.lithuanianstories.com\/en\/lithuania-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Lithuania Today"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>We visited Lithuania for the first time in June 2005. The country had become a member of the EU just over a year before, together with the other two Baltic States: Latvia and Estonia.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>It is difficult to know exactly what called us to there<\/strong>, if not the curiosity <strong>we felt for a country that had been swallowed by the huge galaxy of the Soviet Union<\/strong> and that we Southern Europeans knew very little about.<\/p>\n<p>What we found was a place that was building itself up, <strong>a young country still amidst a thousand difficulties<\/strong> but with <strong>its eyes fixed on the future<\/strong>. Internet connection depended on InternetCaf\u00e9s in those days and there was no Wi-Fi, just as in Italy. There was very little Wi-Fi connection.<\/p>\n<p>After that first experience, <strong>we travelled to Lithuania one or two times a year<\/strong>. The country <strong>was changing fast<\/strong>, both <strong>from an economic and a touristic standpoint<\/strong>. Technology was becoming essential and Wi-Fi connection could be found anywhere. Today, <strong>Lithuania is considered one of the most connected European countries<\/strong>. <strong>Historical downtown areas were being restored<\/strong>, museums were being opened or renovated\u2026 Seemingly <strong>everything changed at every new trip<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Lithuania is a small country that encapsulates <strong>very interesting architectural gems<\/strong>. Sixteenth-century Italian style reverberates in many churches and palaces in <strong>Vilnius and Kaunas, the two main cities<\/strong>. <strong>Woods and lakes<\/strong> make up most of the country. <strong>The Curonian Spit<\/strong>, which constitutes the Western border of the country on the Baltic Sea, is <strong>a narrow strip of land of heart wrenching beauty<\/strong> that separates the sea from the lagoon.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Thomas Mann spent his holidays in Nida<\/strong>, capital of the region. His house has become a museum that commemorates this period in his life. <strong>It is not difficult to picture him sitting at his desk<\/strong> in the studio, writing a novel while being <strong>inspired by the beauty of the landscape<\/strong> he had in front of him.<\/p>\n<p>Lithuania is a country that still has so much left to explore. Those <strong>who love history, nature, architecture<\/strong>, and not only those, <strong>will find their dreams here<\/strong>. We will try <strong>to tell its stories with the same curious enthusiasm<\/strong> that brought us here in 2005. And <strong>that makes us come back here time and time again<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We visited Lithuania for the first time in June 2005. The country had become a member of the EU just over a year before, together with the other two Baltic States: Latvia and Estonia. It is difficult to know exactly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":401,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lithuanianstories.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lithuanianstories.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lithuanianstories.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lithuanianstories.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lithuanianstories.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lithuanianstories.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":471,"href":"https:\/\/www.lithuanianstories.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/335\/revisions\/471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lithuanianstories.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lithuanianstories.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}