Vilnius
What an amazing atmosphere! With it’s lovely and cosy, cobbled roads filled with cafés, bar and restaurants, where you can have tasty pancakes, drinks, ice cream, and many other traditional foods.
We arrived at a tiny airport that looked like a train station. We took a bus from the airport to the Bernardinu B&B (€3.50) accessed from a private courtyard just metres from the main street. A taxi would have costed us around €15. Fortunately for us the streets were full of buskers and street musicians celebrating their Day of Music festival.
We walked around the main square and saw the beautifully decorated cathedral. We climbed the castle, which is just a tower on a steep hill but it commanded great views of the city. Later we discovered that we could have got a funicular railway up there.
We walked to the President’s Palace and wandered around the courtyard and his sculpture garden. Very peaceful.
The next day we saw the market on Brazil street, where you can buy very juicy fruits, clothes, shoes, etc.
After we saw the Virgin Mary painting in the Gate of Dawn Chapel. A site of miracles!
We then wondered past some more churches before catching the bus to Trakai to see the castle there, reached by two bridges from the shore of a huge lake. What a beautiful place! When you get there by bus from Vilnius, you can either take another bus to the castle or walk, which took us about 15min at
a slow pace. The walk was very pleasing, we took the main roads along the length of the peninsula. After ten minutes walk we were able to see the lake on both sides. Such a calm, peaceful place with pedals and a cute little town.
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Our three day, two night trip to Vilnius cost €195 for two people excluding flights. (Prices accurate as at May 2014).
