Baltic States Tour - Vilnius, Lithuania 3

November 05, 2023

Baltic States Tour - Vilnius, Lithuania 3

Our breakfast place of the day was a bakery in Užupis, a small district of Vilnius Old Town where we explored the day before. We walked though Paupys Quarter, a former industrial zone and now newly developed business and residential area. Modern buildings were alined on the both sides of the new streets, which didn't attract us much. Paupys was on the south bank of the Vilnia River. The other side of the bank was Užupis. We crossed the bridge over the river. The autumn trees were gorgeous in the morning sunlight.

Kmyninė was a bakery offering a good selection of traditional Lithuanian bread, pastries, cakes and cookies. They open at 7am on weekdays and have a small eat-in space. Such a place is valuable for "early bird" travelers like us.

The bakery had various cookies on the shelf, which made me excited. Meanwhile, there were savory pastries on the counter, which made J happy. The lady there told us the Chacapuris, cheese-filled flatbreads just came out of the oven. That sounded nice and I tried one. J also got one as well as a savory tart. There were three kinds of savory tarts but I guess he got one filled with spinach and curd cheese.

The freshly baked Chacapuri was so tasty. The cheese inside was mild and gooey. The bread was pretty big. I was too full to have any extra sweet baked goods. I had a sort of hot sweet ginger drink, which was delicious and perfect for the chilly morning.

We were going to the Three Crosses Monument on the Hill of Three Crosses in Kalnai Park, at the corner of northeast of the Old Town. However, the foot path was closed and we couldn't get there. We strolled on the north bank of the River Vilnia, thinking of where to go. I tried to find salmons in the water again, but no luck.

We decided to visit the Gediminas Castle Tower, which we looked up and passed by the day before. There was a funicular to go up to the top, but the hill didn't look too high. We had enough time to climb on foot.

It was easy to reach the top. The Gediminas' Castle Tower is the remaining fortification tower of the Upper Castle. The Vilnius Castle complex consists of the Upper and Lower Castles. The Upper Castle was on the hill and the Lower Castle was extended around the foot of the hill. The Palace that we visited the day before was a part of the Lower Castle.

We needed to wait for about 15 minutes until the tower's door was open for the day. The tower is part of the National Museum and each floor in the tower tells visitors about the history of Vilnius and the castle and so on.

The exhibitions were fine but the best part of the tower was the observation platform on the top. We had wonderful panoramic views of the Vilnius Old Town. It was cold and windy but we enjoyed staying there and capturing the lovely scenery.

Eventually we came back to the ground and did some shopping in the Old Town.

We visited a Rūta store. Rūta is a Lithuanian chocolate/confectionery factory that was founded in 1913 and produces exclusive, original candies representing Lithuania. When I researched the high quality chocolate brands in Lithuania before the trip, Rūta was always included in the list. The store was on my must-go list. We bought a chocolate bar and a chocolate box to take home.

We also stopped by the old crafts workshop of the Fine Crafts Association of Vilnius. It was supposed to be "a place to learn, teach, share and spread old craft traditions and find new ways for forgotten crafts to be implemented into modern-day life." When we visited there, there was no workshops or any events going on. Some crafts for sale were displayed in a room. We adopted a cute sugar bowl made by Deividas Jotautis, a traditional Lithuanian ceramics creator, who was awarded the certificate of National Heritage for his creations.

After walking around in the Old Town pretty much, we explored the outside of the Old Town for a while. We arrived at Lukiškės Square, the largest square in Vilnius that was recently renovated. We found a bench and took a break.

The square had wide green areas and lots of trees.

A robot lawn mower was on his duty. The grasses looked neat. Good job!

We walked further to Lukiškių kalėjimas 2.0, a former prison complex, built in 1940 and closed in 2019. It held criminals, political prisoners and exiles for over 100 years and survived both World Wars and the Soviet occupation. Today the historical building is home of 250 creators and artists to generate music, modern art, design and culture. You can see some parts of the building, including temporary detention facilities and interrogation rooms if you sign up for a two-hour guided tour. We skipped the tour but just looked at the exterior.

We kept walking south around the outside of the old town to our lunch spot. The urban city skyline was on the north side of the River Neris. It looked like a different world from the Old Town.

Some of the Vilnius trolleybuses were in the nostalgic vintage style.

We passed by the Church of St. Constantine and Michael, built in 1913 towards the end of tsarist rule as part of the 300th anniversary celebrations of the Romanov Dynasty, rulers of Russia from 1613 until the Russian Revolution of February 1917. The golden onions were seen as tiny dots from the Gediminas' Castle Tower in the morning. I couldn't believe that we walked so far away.

We walked more to get our lunch place, which was supposed to be a traditional Lithuanian restaurant. Once we arrived there, the restaurant looked pretty small and wasn't inviting. We saw another restaurant on the same street, which was also a traditional Lithuanian restaurant and looked better. We opened the door of Restoranas Senoji Trobelė and asked for a table.

The restaurant was specious. There were three or four dining rooms as well as the terrace tables. The dining room in which we were seated was decorated in a country/farm house style. It was nice to see Straw Gardens, known as Sodai in Lithuania, that are decorative hanging ornaments made in geometric shapes. They looked cute.

We had two starters to share. One was handmade dumplings stuffed with venison and boletus mushroom sauce. They were delicate and delicious.

The other was Lithuanian traditional salad. We expected something like a leafy salad bowl but what the waiter brought to us was something we would call potato salad. It was a surprise but the salad tasted pretty good.

For main, we both chose cabbage rolls stuffed with minced meat, served with boiled potatoes, sour cream and fresh herbs. Hearty and satisfying. I might miss the Baltic's sour cream culture after this trip.