Kaunas. It's cracking

Kaunas, Lithuania’s second-largest city, is as mad as a bucket of beavers, as quirky as … erm, a very quirky thing and a great place to visit if you want a good dose of wacky offered with modern comforts.

Gentlemen will be flocking in like loins to the slaughter to get among the local pretties. Kaunas is known for a certain confidence and style that expresses itself in the form of lavish boots, long fingernails with little murals on them, almost anorexia and either jet black or bottle blonde hair. And it has the longest pedestrian mall in these parts, which is effectively an enormous catwalk. It’s certainly a top town for people watching, for either gender.

It’s also nice for just sitting around in outdoor cafés enjoying the local beer, which is excellent. (Beer goggles are one of the main attractions of Lithuania, because they are very cheap and totally unnecessary.)

But Kaunas is also just a little bit bonkers, which is why we like it. It mixes crumbly bits with charisma, sassy with strange, old with new and convenience with crackpot unpredictability.
The new Kaunas In Your Pocket is currently at the printers, and will be available very soon. If you’re putting Kaunas on your cities to visit list, why not order a copy from our click-and-buy pages?

Giraffe beats up girl

A 22-year-old Kaunas student has been roughed-up by a giraffe at the local zoo.

The drunk student (female) was attacked by the sober nine-year-old giraffe (male) after she disturbed it in its sleep. She was kicked in the head a few times and scored a broken collar bone. Zoo keepers say that if the giraffe and been awake, and outside it's sleeping quarters, things could have been a lot worse.

The drunk students had managed to both enter the zoo and open the door of the giraffe enclosure late on Monday night. We suspect a review of security at Kaunas zoo may be necessary to keep the animals out.

Photo 'Pucker up!' from ucumari.
Details from various sources found on Google News, and the local '15min' newspaper.

New Kaunas In Your Pocket coming soon

The latest edition of Kaunas In Your Pocket has recently been completed, is whirring off the presses, and will be hitting the streets soon. If you're in Kaunas, planning to visit Kaunas, or just want to see what Lithuania's most wacky city is all about, grab a copy. You can already buy online, and it won't be long before you'll see the guide in bookshops, kiosks, on tables in cafes and bars, and so on.

Some of the new bits include a swanky new hotel in the Old Town, a great new Latino style bar and a place where you can sizzle bits of dead cows and chickens on chunks of lava stone. It's also nice to see some of the classic Kaunas favourites and quirky bits haven't changed. Of course, this is Kaunas, and not all places are so great, which is why we're happy to be able to guide you.