Photo Story: Discovering Kaunas

I was very excited to see what Kaunas was like, since Google was showing me only very traditional aspects of the city. I came very late on Friday and was eager to walk around the city on my own the next morning. Kaunas has an old part of the city and it is interesting how it contrasts and complements the spirit of the younger parts of the city. Its architecture is so charming and beautiful, always making you feel safe and welcome.

In the afternoon I met Skaiste and we decided to visit Vilnius and have a relaxing walk around the city. Skaiste is such a great person and such a wonderful host, she listened to my hints about what I would like to see and helped me have a great time in her country! Thank you Skaiste!

On Sunday we met Tamas and had green coffee, which was since then our team’s official drink – because of the high caffeine content, from that day we were ultra productive! 😀
I didn’t get to talk to Tamas a lot during our Rijeka meeting and we had suddenly had him on our team, so I was very pleased to find our what a great person had joined us.

During the next 3 days we spend most of the time together, walking around Kaunas, talking about our project and enjoying phenomenal local and international food.

Skaiste, Tamas and I are people living next to water – the rivers, the lake, the sea. These are aspects of life so strong that one cannot ignore the magnificent influence water has on one’s life, if a person understands its value or not. Therefore we decided to dedicate our project to water.

We had a meeting with the most kind Kaunas 2022 team, who told us about their work. I need to thank Ana and Agne for their precious time and the chance to get to know Kaunas through their words!

Most of the time we compared our cities (Rijeka and Veszprém) to Kaunas in the sense of European Capital of Culture (ECOC) context. Kaunas is a city of hard working people, so greatly preparing for its title of ECOC in 2022. The city is even working on its main streets, putting new stonework so it will be impressive in 2022.

I want to thank the Tandem Cultural Capitals team for this phenomenal opportunity and their leadership, this is another life changing experience that led me closer to my dream of working in the field of culture.