Today, we were still on our own into the early afternoon–when the rest of our traveling comrades arrived–so we venturing once more into the Old Town trying to locate some of the sites we had skipped, missed or were ignorant of yesterday.
But, first, there was the included breakfast in the hotel courtyard! Free fuel…er…food!
Fueled up and well rested, we set out to explore Vilnius on foot. I had loaded (and upgraded for a meager fee) a tour app on my phone and had actually used it to create a walking tour of points of interest throughout the city.
Our first stop was the Vilnius University campus. It was a bit difficult to find as it is a completely urbanized institution, at least in the Old City. Fortunately, I was intent on locating the university’s bookstore, Littera, which put us smack in the middle of the school’s grounds. And what an incredible shop it was. It was small and crowded with books. But its most remarkable feature was overhead: the vaulted ceilings were covered with frescoes that, I found out later, were done to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the university.
Nearby was the Church of (the) St. Johns–the Baptist and the Apostle–which is part of the university.
We found the neighborhood that had been walled off as the Jewish ghetto by the Nazis.
05 Užupis beer garden – Edelweiss
Leaving Užupis by the key-covered bridge, we decided to take a peak inside the white Orthodox cathedral on the way back to the hotel.
07 Group meeting
08 Šakotis bakery
On the way back to the hotel after our first neighborhood walk-about, Aida made a stop at a šakotis bakery to introduce us to a Lithuanian dessert. Made of a sweet dough in a dripping and baking process that creates a hollow “tree”.
09 Meeting Česlovas
Česlovas met us at the hotel after dinner and we sat in the courtyard conversing about genealogy until sunset…which doesn’t happen until @11:00 PM! We sat in the courtyard while I showed him what information I had saved on the laptop.
10 Discussing geneology
Our Baltic Adventure 