We spent three days in Kaunas and Vilnius in Lithuania, and although this was our first time there, we were able to visit the country’s two main cities: Kaunas e Vilnius. This country offers very tasty food, good entertaining basketball games and cosy cafes to sit. We left crowded Dublin, which was preparing for it’s famous St. Patrick’s festivities and flew on Friday evening after work. It took us about 3 hours to get there, where the time zone is 2 hours ahead of Dublin.
A bit about Lithuania
Lithuania is part of the Baltic states, along with Latvia and Estonia and all 3 countries share similar economic and political features, although not necessarily the same culture, language or national identities. While in Latvia and Lithuania the majority of people are Baltic, in Estonia the majority are Finnic. Nonetheless, they are compared to each other both by outsiders and between themselves.
Lithuania is a great getaway to visit during Autumn and Spring, because of the nice natural landscapes and tours you can do around the country during this time.
So what can you do if you go to Lithuania for 3 days?
Itinerary
Day 1 – Kaunas, late night
We arrived that day in Kaunas late in the evening, grabbed a taxi from the airport and went straight to our hotel Europa Royale Kaunas. Well located, the hotel offered very cozy and clean rooms, along with a various buffet type breakfast. It was cold when we arrived, and all we were looking for, was to drop our stuff and grab something to warm us up.
After we left our luggage and checked in, we decided to go out for a drink. We found a cozy bar called Kultura, where we grabbed some beers. We were unlucky in our beer choices, as they weren’t the best we’ve had. Nonetlehess, the bar’s atmosphere was very cozy and chilled. After we relaxed there, we walked back to the hotel and went to sleep.
After a long week, this was well-deserved rest.
Day 2 – Vilnius, basketball and sight seeing
As we love to see as much as we can, we decided that we would split the weekend in two: 1 day spent in Vilnius and 1 day in Kaunas. After breakfast, we went to catch a train to go to Vilnius, which is only 1h15 away from Kaunas. The train trip to Vilnius was smooth and nice. We love trains. Our minds wandered by gazing outside and our eyes were fixed on the outer landscapes: a flowing river (the Neman) and rolling hills. We felt a sense of relaxation and calm as we ease into the trip.
We anticipated that the weather wouldn’t be good, so we didn’t join a free walking tour and explored what we could on our own instead. Of course, it is not the same to wander on your own, without any context to the history and culture present in the city. But we didn’t spend that much time outside and opted for indoor activities instead. Lithuanians are known for their talent for basketball, and we love the sport. We found tickets online (7€ per ticket) for a local game between the Vilnius based team Rytas and another local Lithuanian team.
Exploring Vilnius
We arrived in Vilnius mid-morning and went off to explore some of its main viewpoints before heading out to the game, which was only taking place later in the afternoon. Although the weather was not the best, we managed to walk around and enjoy some of the city’s mains squares and old town architecture. Before WWII, Vilnius was known as the “Jerusalem of the North” due to the Jewish influence. Unfortunately, due to it being occupied by Nazi Germany a lot of Jews disappeared and the city was never the same again. Nonetheless, you have a lot of references to this period throughout the city and the names of certain spots in the city.
Hall Market
First stop the colorful food market of Vilnius – Hall Market, where people go mostly to buy fresh vegetables, fruits, meat, and fish. Afterward, we wandered around the city center, passing through some nice street art. That’s something both in Vilnius and Kaunas, you can see nice street art. To shelter from the rain we made a coffee stop at Café Montmartre, a French café in Vilnius city center, where we had some warm cappuccino and croissants.
After this break, we decided to walk around a bit more and grab a bite to eat at Etno Dvaras (a restaurant chain of typical Lithuanian food). There we had some amazing Wild mushroom soup served in cozy rye bread shape. A great choice to warm us up from the cold. Once we finished eating, it was time to head out to check the basketball game, which was further away from the city center. As we found out, taxis were cheap enough via an app they have called eTAKSI.
Basketball time
The game lasted for 3h and around 19h we returned to the city center. Albeit the cold, we walked around a bit and appreciated the wide avenues that they have and imagined how nice the city must be during summertime with esplanades outside. When we travel to other European cities we always like to compare them with Dublin. We like to appreciate the little things, which can be translated into e.g. cozy and spacious cafes, where you can appreciate a nice cappuccino and read your book. In Vilnius, although we traveled there during the wrong weather period, walking through the city’s avenues it gave us a glimpse of how lovely it can be in the Spring or Summertime. After wandering around for a bit and until weren’t freezing, we walked back to the train station and returned to Kaunas that evening.
Day 3 – Kaunas, street art
During our last day in Lithuania, we explored Kaunas since our flight was only late in the afternoon. The weather was better that day and we headed towards the old town. We walked via the river and took the opportunity to buy some of our favorite coffee – Jacobs’ coffee (not available in Ireland), at a local supermarket. In general, we like to explore the local supermarkets everywhere we go that is a new place, just to gives us an idea of what people’s tastes are from a certain country.
Walking in Kaunas and taking a good look at its buildings and architecture you see a resemblance of soviet times and soviet type architecture. The city’s infrastructure still looks underdeveloped, but well preserved overall. Spread out throughout the city, there are also some nice street art pieces when we were walking around. There was not a lot of people in the streets or open places, perhaps because it was Sunday. Which gave it a sense of being an empty city.
Some places to eat in Kaunas
We managed to find a nice place that was open and to sit. At Piano Piano, we had some nice bruschetta and drank some nice wine. We sat there for a while to rest our feet, and after a couple of hours left to explore more of the city. Wandering around Kaunas was nice and the city had a good vibe. We ended the day by grabbing some Lithuanian Doughnuts (Spurgos or Pampuskos), just to taste them, and having a seafood at a restaurant called DIA. The food was delicious, but the ambiance was not our style. Too fancy for our taste.
We ended the evening relaxing at the hotel and prepared to leave back the next day to Dublin. It was a good St. Patrick’s break. We enjoyed what we could, and felt we saw a lot in those 2 full days spent in Lithuania.
Language, Visa, Currency
As Lithuania is part of the EU and uses the €, there is no need to check for visas or worry about currency exchange, if you are coming from an EU country. They speak Lithuanian (closely related to neighboring Latvian and more distantly to Slavic, Germanic, and other Indo-European languages. It is written in a Latin alphabet) as the official language, but their level of English is quite good, and as a tourist is more than enough to go around.
Concerning overall prices, we found the country to be moderately cheap when compared to Ireland.
Transportation and around
We took taxis to and from the airport and took a train to go from Kaunas to Vilnius the 2nd day.
The train ticket costs round trip around 9.60€ and lasts for 1.40h one way.
Weather
During this time, the weather was cold with an average temperature of 8oC and rainy. For us, this wasn’t a big deal, since in Ireland the weather was very similar. We brought with us our heavy jackets, cameras, and were set to go.
