My last day at my old job was Thursday so we decided to celebrate my move with a quick weekend away. Since neither of us has spent much time in Eastern Europe, we wanted to visit somewhere in that area and ended up going for Vilnius, Lithuania.
Friday
As with most of Europe, it’s pretty easy to get to Vilnius after work on a Friday. We got a flight from Stanstead which took around 3 hours, arriving into Vilnius at 11pm, where we got the cheapest uber we’ve ever got (even factoring in the late night surcharge) to the AirBnb. The airport is super close to the city centre, so it is actually only a short bus/cab ride in which is ideal late at night.
The AirBnb was lovely, split over two floors with a wood burning stove and exposed brick ceilings and feature walls. The fire was definitely appreciated since it was less than 0° C for most of the time we were there with snow on the ground. It was only a 15 minutes walk to the heart of the Old Town so really convenient too.
Saturday
For breakfast, we went to Sugamour because it had really good reviews on line. It was similar to price to most London brunch places, but was a lot more fancy! We both had eggs benedict with salmon and it was delicious.
Next we went to the National Museum of Lithuania which was really interesting since neither of us knew anything about the history in that region. We spent quite a long time there since there was so much to see so once we were finished we were hungry again. Lunch was at Crustum which is a chain of cafes and all seemed quite nice and cosy. The chocolate cake was particularly delicious.
After lunch, we walked up to the Hill of the Three Crosses just outside of the Old Town. These are three huge white crosses stood at the top of a hill with a platform at their base where you can look out over the city. It like a big park around the hill that was really nice to walk through, especially since it was so snow covered.
For dinner, we went to Senoji Trobele which was quite pricey, especially for Lithuania, but the food was great and the atmosphere was really lovely. The waiter told us stories about Lithuania nad the food was very traditional. We shared veil dumplings and a veil stew with potato donuts.
Sunday
We had a big sleep in on Sunday, before heading out to a pancake place that was pretty strange. If you want any kind of pancake ever, then this is your place. The menu was so huge. Feeling a little bit overwhelmed by choice, we went for am egg, spinach and cottage cheese crepe and a chocolate and banana crepe to share. Both were good but nothing special. The decor is pretty out there though so it was a fun experience.
We then wandered around the Old Town for a while, ducking in to a couple of orthodox churches and little shops before Andrew was hungry again (I realise writing this up that all we seem to do is eat, but i promise that’s not true!). We went for a coffee and small cake at Pinavija Café which was small and dainty and really lovely inside. The cakes all looked delicious!
In the afternoon, we went to the Museum of Genocide Victims (not to be confused with the Holocaust museum which is entirely seperate). It was super interesting, focusing on Stalin and the KGB, including the cells the victims would have been. It was pretty serious, but I really like learning about the history of these kinds of places.
For dinner we went to a place called Varenyky because we really wanted to try the dumplings that we’d seen around a lot and apparently this place does really good ones. The food was pretty simple but it was tasty.
Monday
After paying a solid £2.75 for the Uber to the airport (why can it not be this price in London!?) we made it for our 5:30am flight, getting us back to London just in time for a long day of work. (Just in case you make the same mistake we did, the lounge at Vilnius airport is before security. Andrew was devastated he didn’t get a free coffee)