After our previous brief half day visit to the famous Druskininkai Water Park we knew we had to come back, so after hiring the Fiat, that’s where we headed for some more fun in the pool. Seriously, I haven’t been to the pool at Sydney’s Olympic Park but I doubt it would be as much fun as this place. A massive complex incorporating hotel, family water park and adults only water park it had something for everyone. From big indoor/outdoor pool with waterfalls and river rapids to water slides that went so fast I actually blacked out in one and squeeled like a teenager in another, to adults only pool with floating bar, spas and saunas that went up to 110°C (yes, that’s really hot) – which we managed to briefly check out with our complimentary one hour child minding.
The town itself is really beautiful, lots of lakes to swim in, streets lined with flowers, interesting statues and architecture. The area around the town is also very pretty – lots of forests and lakes. In amongst them is the somewhat infamous Gruto Parkas. The place where all the old statues and busts of soviet era baddies go to die. Some of you may have already ‘virtually’ been here – I think it features in a level of the old N64 “Golden Eye” shooter.
A fascinating place to walk around – some of the statues were massive, and most with photos showing where the statues actually stood. The mood was kept quite eerie with old watchtowers surrounding the park blurting out old Russian marching tunes. In fact, it felt very strange walking around this beautiful park, with some amazing works of art that represented very dark times for many people in this part of the world. And we knew it was time to pull stumps when Mishka started hugging statues of Lenin. We headed for the restaurant for lunch which has on the menu dishes that promise an “authentic soviet experience”. I had some of the borscht which wasn’t bad but the actual bowl and spoon was made of the crappiest mix of cheapest metals that I was fearful of how it would contaminate the soup. At least the blob of sour cream gave it some weight.
