Vilnius – Lithuania (day 1)
At the flight towards Vilnius I sat next to a woman from Kaunas. She was keen to challenge her German skills, thus told me her view about her country: what is interesting, what to love, what not to miss. Loved her little stories, just to prepare me a bit more for the experiences the next days.
Our guide was Vitalija Puodziunaite, studied history and culture.
In the afternoon, we arrived at our hotel. The trip from the airport to the historic centre was one along ‘East European’ impressions (from the cold war period); felt like I was back home, 40 years ago.
The hotel at the edge of the historic city is phenomenal modern. With Belgium food 🙂
After dropping our luggage, we had about 2 hours for first roaming the city. Went to the Town Hall Square, saw a wedding at All Saints, checked some streets in the Jewish Quarter, stepped into St. Maria’s for a sec and afterwards started looking for some ice cream because of the most beautiful summer day. Finally, we found some in a cheese shop. For us, not the first place to search for it, but has some logic. What an amazing coupe! Lovely! Magic! We went back to the hotel for our guided city walk, but not without a quick look into the market hall… not that spectacular, to admit.
The historic part of the city is quite an area to explore! We started with the Gate of Dawn, the only remaining gate of the city wall (which, actually, went partly through our hotel) A painting of Maria on a oak board helped preserving the whole gate in all times of struggle. Nowadays, it’s an pilgrim’s place. Vilnius has a lot of churches, most catholic, a few orthodox, two protestant, one synagogue. Most of them with a special story and/or some specific architectonic features. For what we visited, the St. Peter and Paul church was the most impressive to me: all white, all plaster work, extremely detailed. A real masterpiece!
Lithuania has quite a history of struggles, being suppressed and freed, traded, being heroic, keeping traditions, tolerance and its identity. And for the last 20 to 25 years it is on its way to claim its own, freed place in the world. Amazing, how fast and good this country is developing, despite all the difficulties it has to face.
Back to the city walk. Every corner of the city, and certainly of the historic part, is telling a special story. So does the German Street, along the Jewish Quarter. With much more history to tell then only about the impact of WWII. It starts centuries before that, and still has its impact on the city today. Enlightening, how the perspective of locals draws quite a different picture about developments and relations!
In an overwhelming baroque city, a church build in flaming gothic style is an eye catcher, tells – again – a different story about power, influence and success. Vilnius has a lot of (not really) hidden gems; it’s just the amount of nice streets and walks and places what never stops to surprise. Even street art is taken to a very new level.
For dinner, we went to “Saula”, a gothic cellar with traditional Lithuanian food, beer and wine.. Just loved it!