Vilnius, Lithuania 12.07

We arrived in Vilnius late in the evening, and once again struggled to find our hotel. It was actually an unregistered hotel, that we had heard about by word of mouth, so it didn't have a sign out the front. We found the right street, but the owner had to come out to meet us, to show us where it was.

Unusual sign. Is this encouraging children to play on the road?

The place had a big courtyard, with lots of little rooms or apartments. Our apartment was in the same building but above where some members of the family lived. We walked past their kitchen and living room as we came in. It was nice and basic, not luxurious, but that was all we needed. Our host spoke Polish with an Eastern accent, which made Artur's parents love him at first sight. He was very friendly and courteous, and offered any assistance that we might need.

We went for a wander around the city after we got there. We mainly followed the main road, and saw lots and lots of pizza restaurants. There were a lot of people around, even though it was late. We even saw a 'walk through' McDonalds, where you could order from the sidewalk, as well as from inside the restaurant.

The McDonalds 'Walk Through'

Everywhere we looked, we found young girls having 'hen's nights', and young men having 'buck's nights'. Some of the guys were dressed in togas, and the girls were wearing veils and sometimes horns. The street had a fun atmosphere, and we looked forward to returning the next night, when we would hopefully be a little less tired.

The next day, we were served a delicious breakfast in the kitchen, and then we headed out for our sightseeing. We were very excited and a bit sentimental, because Artur's father's parents used to live not far from Vilnius. This was the first time he had returned to the city since he was 10 years old. This city was also implicity connected to the family because Adam Mickiewicz, the famous Polish poet, lived here for a large part of his life.

Cathedral Square

The first thing that we chose to visit, was the Cathedral Square, which dominates the Vilnius skyline. The Cathedral was an enormous cream coloured building, with white statues of angels, huge pillars and elaborate carvings. There was also a 57m belfry standing in front of the church.
Inside, the church was decorated in a classical style. The walls were a simple white, and the altarpieces were only coloured in muted tones. The main altar, had some beautiful marble columns surrounding a huge painting.
One interesting feature of the cathedral, was the St Kazimierz Chapel, with its frescos of the life of St Kazimierz. However there was a very famous icon in the church that took most of the attention. It was a piece of cloth that had the face of Jesus on it. It looked as if he had wiped his face on it, and the dirt had left the image of his face.

The Holy Cloth

At the front of the church, we saw a baptism in progress. There was only a small audience, so we didn't feel too weird wandering around the rest of church while it was happening.

Next we went to conquer the Gediminas Castle, but we couldn't find a way to get in. We could see the Castle, and that there were a few people on top of it, but the entrance seemed to be closed. There was a vague sign telling us that we needed to enter via the funicular, but we had no idea what that was, and we couldn't see any other entrance. We walked around the hill that the castle was on, but we still had no luck.
We decided to visit the House of Mickiewicz instead. The house was on the small side, but somehow, huge groups of people had managed to wedge themselves inside the building. We found out that it would be quite a while before we could go in, so we decided to see another church in the meantime.

Beautiful Church

The church that we saw was a spectacular peach coloured building, with pointed towers in a gothic style. It was really huge, with lots of sections that looked like they had been added on later, but in keeping with the same style. It was probably one of the prettiest churches that we saw in Vilnius.
Inside the church, most of the decorations were wooden. The pews were all made of heavy wood, and the altar stage was covered in pieces of carved wooden furniture. It was pretty inside, but not as spectacular as the building looked from the outside.
As was becoming the trend in Vilnius, we saw about another 3 wedding parties outside taking photos. Loren was happy to stick around outside and admire their pretty dresses.Weddings were absolutely rife throughout this town. It was a Sunday, and it looked like every church in town must have been booked out. This would be a feat of its own, considering how many churches there are in this city. It seemed to have the largest population of churches outside of Rome.

Mickiewicz House

We made our way back to Mickiewicz's house, and waited out in the courtyard for the tour to finish. Finally we made it inside, and made the most of the still empty rooms to take some photos. We posed with statues of Mickiewicz while we waited for the tour guide and the rest of the crowd to come in.

The guide was Lithuanian, but he spoke in Polish, and explained all about Mickiewicz's life, and the objects inside of the rooms. There were old writing desks there, sculptures and paintings of Mickiewicz, bookcases filled with his books in many different translations.

He mentioned that the paintings were pretty inaccurate, because they depicted Mickiewicz wearing clothes that he could not have owned at that time in his life. He also spoke about his love life, and how his true love chose a man with more money, even though she loved him.
After a while, Loren got bored, because she couldn't understand the commentary by the guide. So she went off the main street to do some shopping, asking them to fill her in on the best parts later. She managed to walk a long way, in the short time that she had, but she didn't find many stores that sold things with the names 'Gucci', 'Emporio Armani', or 'Coco Chanel' attached.
At the end of the tour, Artur and his parents wrote in the guestbook, and then bought a book about the life of Mickiewicz. The guide was an expert on the topic, and had written the book that they bought. They got them autographed, and addressed to us.

Gediminas Castle

We all met up again, near the Mickiewicz house, and then got ourselves some ice cream. We decided to try to find the entrance to Gediminas Castle again. This time we approached it from another angle, and instead of an entrance, we found a big white building, which seemed to be a museum. We found out when we arrived there that the funicular was within the walls of this white building. Helpful signage, easy location! Not!
We found the mysterious funicular, which turned out to be like an uphill tram, to assist people to get up the 48m hill to the castle. We were impressed with the view from the hill when we got to the top, but then we realised that we'd get even better ones if we climbed the tower.
There were a few exhibits on display inside the tower, but we were more interested in getting to the top. Once we got up there, we spent a long time just staring out at all the churches that dotted the skyline. There seemed to be as many churches as houses!
We wandered through the other ruins of the castle, but the tower was the most intact part remaining. There were a few other sections with buildings, but we were only allowed to walk around them, not inside.

Main Street in Old Town

Soon we headed back to the Old Town, and walked along the main street where Loren had been shopping earlier. On our way along the street, we managed to visit 4 churches! The first one we saw was the St Teresa church, which was early baroque in style. The second was the Orthodox Church of the Holy Spirit, which was had a pink domed roof and was built in the 17th century. The third was the Holy Trinity Church, which was not in great condition, and the last was the St Kazimierz Church. St Kazimierz is the patron saint of Vilnius, so you might have recalled that his name has come up a few times so far. This church was apparently the oldest of Vilnius' baroque masterpieces (1604-1615).
We saw several more wedding parties outside these churches, a second baptism and even a funeral. We saw a restaurant setting up for wedding reception as well. Obviously weddings are regular and big business in this town.
We walked all the way up to the Gates of Dawn, which are the only section of the city walls' five original gates that still remain intact. The Gate houses a chapel containing a black and gold icon of the Virgin Mary. This icon is one of the holiest in Polish Catholicism, and it is known to have caused miracles.
After our healthy dose of churches for the day, we decided to sit down for lunch in the restaurant that was setting up for the wedding reception. They offered Zeppeliny, or Kartacze, which are a Lithuanian specialty that was brought to Poland. This is the blimp shaped potato and meat that we had in Gdansk and Bialowieza. We were all big fans of them, so we all ordered the same thing.

Uzupis

After the meal, we went back for a quick break at our hotel. Artur's parents decided to explore a historical Vilnius graveyard. We decided to check out the Bohemian District, Uzupis, instead. Uzupis is a funny place. In 1998, they officially declared themselves as an unofficial breakaway state. They even have their own president, anthem, flags and constitution!

We wandered over the bridge which leads to Uzupis, and noticed that there were hundreds of locks attached to it. We had seen this at a few places in other countries, and the idea is that you and your partner put a lock on the bridge symbolising your love, and then throw away the key together. Quite romantic :)
Speaking of romance, there were a lot more weddings to be seen on our way to this area too. One of the guests or bridesmaids had chosen her own dress, and it seemed like she was really trying to outshine the bride. She was wearing a pink coloured dress with a hoop skirt, like you would have on a wedding dress! I'm surprised she didn't get sent home to change!
As we wandered into Uzupis, we saw a couple of cool looking pubs and bars, and then it just became like a normal suburb again. We reached the main square, which had a statue high on a column. The statue was of the Angel of Uzupis, which is the symbol or mascot of the community.

We kept wandering along the backstreets, and we ended up coming across a street called Paupio Gatve. Along the wall of this street, we were able to see the constitution of Uzupis. They had it displayed in lots of different languages including Polish and English.
It was quite a comical constitution. Some of the points seemed to make a lot of sense, but others were kind of weird, and you wondered why they had been included. Some of the points were:

-Everyone has the right to understand.
-Everyone has the right to understand nothing.
-Everyone has the right to own and care for a dog until one of them dies.
-A dog has the right to be a dog.
-A cat does not have to love its owner, but it must be there in times of need.

There were 41 points in total, but I doubt that you can imagine what the rest were!
There were also some big images of a hand on the wall, probably another symbol of Uzupis. We saw a few couples taking photos there in their wedding attire. We indulged ourselves and took some too.

An Evening in the Old Town
After our bizarre little excursion, we headed back to the hotel again, to get ready for dinner. We got a bit dressed up for the occasion, and Loren made the most of the opportunity to wear her lovely white high heels and favorite red dress. Once we were all fancied up, we headed out in search of an equally fancy restaurant.

We started off in the wrong direction, so it took us a while to find the Old Town. Eventually, we arrived a cute little restaurant in a little side street. They had a terrace area outside, which convinced us that this was where we wanted to eat. The tables had candles on them, which made the atmosphere perfect for our meal.
The waiter spoke Polish which was very helpful, and we absolutely loved our food. So it was a good choice of place. During the meal, someone came around selling roses, so Artur decided to buy one for Loren, because he thought she looked so pretty all dressed up for the evening.
After dinner, Artur's parents headed back to the hotel. We decided to go out and explore the Old Town by night instead. First we found a pretty outdoor eating and drinking area. It was quite large, and had lots of little candlelit tables. The candles were really cool, as they had two layers of glass around the tea light candles. The inner layer had a logo on it that created a shadow on the outer layer of glass. It made a cool, spooky looking shadow that bobbed up and down with the candle light.
Next we headed to a busy bar in the main square. We had a few cocktails there, which were lovely. Artur asked for a 'white russian', which is a cocktail of milk and kahlua. They just thought he was really weird, and brough him a glass of milk, and a shot of kahlua. As the night progressed, we decided to order a special board of five different Lithuanian shots. They weren't very big, but some of them had a really sweet and nice flavour.
On our way home, we saw lots more bucks nights and hens nights in progress. Including a group of girls dressed up in white outfits with little hats, like naughty nurses or something like that.
The next morning, before we left, we decided to do some souvenir shopping. We stopped at the main street in the old town, where they had a little market. We couldn't find much that we liked though. Most things seemed to over-the-top or kitschy. In the end, we found a cool souvenir shop that had some funny t-shirts. Artur bought one with some medieval Lithuanian men holding shields. On each of the shield they had pictures of what they represented. One had a picture of a jug of beer, another had a picture of a beautiful woman, and the other had a big plate of food. Loren found a ring that caught her fancy. It was turquoise, with a rectangle of silver sitting around the stone. We saw some cool paintings on display in the market, but we didn't want to end up with a picture of the Old Town from every place that we visited, so we decided to leave them there.

To see the photos from the post in slideshow mode, click on on the link below:
Vilnus pictures