Baltic States Tour - Vilnius, Lithuania 2
Good morning, Vilnius!
We passed by Saint Catherine's Church, a late Baroque church, originally built between 1625 and 1743. The bright red ocher and white colors of the exterior woke me up.
The breakfast place was on this street.
Pinavija was a bakery/tea house. When I googled the best bakery, the best cake or the best breakfast in Vilnius, their name popped out. That seemed promising.
The homemade sweet pastries and cakes certainly looked nice, but there wasn't Kibinai, crescent-shaped Lithuanian savory pastries filled with meat, onion, cheese, mushrooms, spinach, etc. Their Kibinai seemed popular and I wanted to try one. Too bad. I ordered porridge made with oat milk from their tea room menu. J did omelette.
While we were waiting for our dishes, we shared a sweet pastry filled with cherry jam. That was nice.
Our dishes haven't been served yet but Kibinai came out from the kitchen... Too late.
Finally our dishes came to the table. The waiting time was quite long. A couple of large groups and some individual customers were in the tea room. All were women.
J's omelette looked nice. My porridge was nice. Porridge somehow makes me feel I am doing something good to my body.
We were recharged to explore the Old Town. While we were walking on Gediminas Avenue, the historical center's main street, running between the Cathedral Square and the Lithuanian Parliament, the "Three Muses" sculpture on the façade of the Lithuanian National Drama Theater surprised me.
We arrived at the Cathedral Square. The Cathedral Basilica of St. Stanislaus and St. Ladislaus was built in the late 18th century on the site that several churches have been built, including the first cathedral in the 13th century and a pagan temple in pre-Christian times. The current Neoclassical style appearance was created in the early 19th century.
The ivory color interior was rather plain.
On the other hand the Chapel of St. Casimir, one of the side chapels was decorated magnificently. It is recognized as one of the most valuable Baroque masterpieces in Lithuania.
The bell tower stood diagonally in front of the main entrance to the cathedral. It was a defensive tower 600 years ago and today looked like a lighthouse or a candle on a birthday cake.
Behind the cathedral was the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania. It's currently the National Museum, which we visited later.
The bronze sculpture in front of the Palace was the Grand Duke Gediminas (1275-1341), one of the most famous rulers of ancient Lithuania, who founded Trakai (a town west of Vilnius) and Vilnius and ruled the region for 25 years.
The next to the Palace was the Gediminas Castle Tower. It's the only remaining part of the caste that was built between the end of the 13 century and the beginning of the 14th century by the Grand Duke Gediminas. We just passed through the foot of the hill, saving the climbing exercise later.
We wandered in the Bernardine Garden, a public park in the historical center, on the left bank of the Vilnia River. The leaves were turning and beautiful.
I read online that salmon migrate in the river in autumn. I stared at the water for a while but didn't see salmon or any fish. Instead I saw many ducks floating. They were adorable.
The garden was large and relaxing.
We passed through the garden and arrived at St. Anne's Church. The striking Gothic architecture looked fresh after I watched a series of the city's Baroque churches.
The original church was constructed of wood, which was built for Anna, Grand Duchess of Lithuania and wife to Vytautas the Great. She died in 1418. The church was destroyed in fire in 1419 and rebuilt in brick between 1495 and 1500. The façade seen today is not much changed since then. There are numerous brick Gothic churches but this is the only one that is built from brick in Flamboyant Gothic style in the world. Interesting.
St. Anne's Church is attached to a larger Roman Catholic church, which made a complicated look overall.
St. Francis of Assisi and St. Bernardine of Siena (Bernardine) Church was originally built in wood in the 15th century, which was burned down. The current brick church was built in the early 16th century. Once we entered the church, I noticed the thirteen wooden alters of late Baroque style first.
The 16th century Gothic frescoes on the nave walls, composing figures from the Bible, life of St. Francis of Assisi and hagiographic themes are considered unique and valuable. The colors of the frescoes were still beautiful.
Then we crossed the River Vilnia and visited the self-proclaimed “Republic of Užupis,” the smallest district in Vilnius, which is known as a bohemian art district with a free spirit. It has its own constitution, president, bishop, and flag like an independent country, but nobody stopped us when we went in and out the district.
I didn't find many artworks or quirky things there but there was a cat sculpture. It is said, if you scratch the ear of the Užupis Cat, the only cat in Vilnius with an earring, you'll live a life without fear. The cat looked scary, though.
We came back to the Old Town and visited the Bastion of the Vilnius Defensive Wall. The 16th century fortification bastion was part of the city's defensive wall system. Today the building complex, including a tower and tunnels houses a museum that tells you the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania's weaponry and defense practices.
A small part of the old city walls still remains.
The Gates of Dawn is the only remaining gate of the city wall today.
There was an indoor marketplace near the surviving gate. Built in 1906, Halle Market is one of the largest and oldest markets in Vilnius.
It's always fun to visit a local market. Halle Market was smaller than Riga Central Market but enough to give us a good idea of what kinds of food local people get.
While we were walking around the southwest part of the Old Town, we happened to find the Church of All Saints, another Baroque-style church, built in 17th century. The church is located near the main gate to the Jewish ghetto and during WWII the priest of the church provided bread through a secret tunnel connecting the church with the ghetto.
We came to the center of the Old Town and stopped by St. John the Baptist and St. John the Apostle and Evangelist Church. The construction of the church began in 1386 and completed in 1426. The church was entrusted to the Jesuit College, the origin of Vilnius University, in 1571. Since then the church has always been surrounded by the academic community.
It was time for lunch. We tried again the restaurant that we couldn't get a table the day before. Restaurant Mykolo 4 was located down a side street off a busy main street. According to the restaurant, their menu reflects "the traditions of Vilnius bourgeois gastronomy by relying on old culinary publications and even original notes of the housewives," including a 19th century cookbook, which was printed in the neighboring street to their current location. They don't just recreate the old dishes but "bring the old recipes to daylight, and share their modern interpretations in the best seasonality-based way." How fascinating!
A table was available this time but with a condition. There was a large group at the dining table and they would like to sing. If we wouldn't mind it, we could be seated. We had no idea how the unexpected situation would affect us. We took a chance. About 10 people were singing at a large table and one of they was playing a kind of stringed instruments. It was a little loud but we were away from the table and got used it soon. Actually they politely asked us if they could sing one more song when we were seated. We told them we wouldn't mind and they could sing more. They sang many. By the way the songs that the group was singing was old forgotten Lithuanian songs, which sounded like church songs, according to our waitress. The rare music added an unique atmosphere to our lunch experience.
A complimentary appetizer was mushroom pâté with rye bread. That was tasty. We also had two starters to share. One was Fried Matje herrings with potato straws, cucumber and yogurt-herbs sauce. The other was Green salad of zucchini, cucumber, pea pods, asparagus, olives, cherry tomato, walnuts, citrus yogurt cream and cherry dressing. Both were very good.
My main was Char fish fillet baked on cedar plank, served with amaranth, arugula, strawberries and citrus sauce. I haven't had Char before, which is similar to salmon. The fish was delicious. The flavor somehow reminded me of a Japanese miso-marinated baked fish dish.
J had lamb rump steak, served with vegetable ratatouille, plum jam and red wine sauce. J let me tasted a bit of lamb. It was super tender and perfectly cooked.
For dessert we had "Honey Dessert," which was lemony gingerbread parfait, decorated with more gingerbread crumbs, orange cream and white chocolate. Lovely.
After the wonderful lunch, we visited the National Museum in the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania. In the 13th century a stone castle was built on the site when Vilnius became one of the most important political centers in Europe. The castle was converted a luxurious Renaissance Royal Palace by the 16th century. However, its golden time ended in the mid-17th century when the Palace was damaged by an occupation army from Moscow, and it was totally destroyed by the beginning of the 19th century. The restoration of the Palace began in 2002 and opened in 2009 as an historic residence museum to showcase parts of the original castle/palace ruins as well as restored period rooms and ceremonial halls with newly purchased or donated artworks and furnishings.
There were four Routes in the museum. Route 1: the surviving authentic walls and the collection of archaeological artifacts. Route 2: the stylistic development of the residence of the Lithuanian grand dukes through the Late Gothic, Renaissance and Early Baroque periods. Route 3: the Lithuanian grand dukes' castle and palace fortifications and weapons collection. Route 4: the museum's exhibition centre. According to recommendations by the lady at the ticket counter, we covered Route 1 and 2. We started with Route 1...
And then toured to Route 2.
Route 2 included a lift to the observation deck. Oh oh, the sky was dark and it looked like it was going to rain.
Route 2 continued...
We left the Palace and headed to the hotel. When we almost got there, it started raining. We had a busy full day and it was time to rest.
To be continued...
