Here is the full moon over the Congress Concert Hall in Vilnius. I will continue to capture each full moon this year.

Lithuanian is an ancient language, rich with a complex grammar and full of poetic subtleties. Today I was in a region in the southeast, Dzūkija. On the way to the Čepkelių Reserve, we stopped in a small old village called Zervynos. It has traditional houses upon a lovely river, the Ūla. While walking around, we met an old woman of 88. She spoke in the local dialect, and invited us to her house. She immediatly began singing a rather sad song, which I didn’t quite understand. But it was clear that she is lonely. Like many other villages, this one is rather empty, as people have left to go to the cities, or abroad. About 25% of Lithuanians have left the country, and in the UK there are more than 200,000 recent Lithuanian immigrants. Vilnius is bustling and full of new shopping malls and skyscrapers, but the villages are being abandoned. It would be a good time to buy Lithuanian land.

The Čepkelių Reserve is a huge swamp, and in the summer there are millions of birds. Today is was extremely quiet, and peaceful. There is a huge forest around, that continues into Belorussia. People love to hunt for mushrooms and berries here. The countryside is not crowded and there is still space for trees and swamps. We continued on to Merkinė, where we climbed the ancient hill fortress of Queen Bona Sforza (the Italian who became queen of Lithuania, who was the evil mother in the ballet I saw last week, Barbora Radvilaitė). It was a lovely view of the confluence of the Merkys and Nemunas rivers.

Last night was a sauna experience. Pilaitės Dvaras is like a small old village just on the outskirts of Vilnius. With a few friends, in an old sauna, enjoying the heat and then jumping into the cold pond. I certainly am no longer just a visitor, I am a Lithuanian.