Lithuania

Lithuania is the only Baltic country with nearly eight hundred years of statehood tradition, while its name was first mentioned almost one thousand years ago, in 1009. Wedged at the dividing line of Western and Eastern civilizations, Lithuania battled dramatically for its independence and survival. Once in the Middle Ages, Lithuania was the largest state in the entire Eastern Europe, where crafts and overseas trade prospered.

Lithuania a little country wedged into a corner of the Baltic Sea, Lithuania is the largest of the Baltic States but has the shortest coastline. Both its land mass  of 65,303 square kilometres and population  of about 3.4 million are similar to those of the Republic of Ireland.

Vilnius the Capital of Lithuania
Vilnius The Capital of Lithuania - a city that has been rapidly growing and has emerged as a modern European city. It is the largest city in Lithuania with its population of more than 500.000 inhabitants. 

The Old Town is one of the largest historical centres in Europe (3,6km2), where all the most valuable cultural and historical sites are concentrated. Some of the buildings in the old town are built over several centuries. Mostly Vilnius is known as a Baroque style city, but you will also find examples of Gothic style, like St.Anne's church. One of the main sights of the city is Gediminas Castle and Cathedral Square, which are also the symbols of the city. The Old Town of Vilnius is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

What to see in Lithuania
Trakai Castle 30 km. from Vilnius originates back from the 14th century. It was one of the main centres of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Nowadays, during the summer a lot of festivals and concerts are being held at the castle. It also hosts a history museum, which was established at the castle in 1962.

In Lithuania you will also find the Hill of the Crosses. It is the Lithuanian national pilgrimage centre. The crosses have been destroyed and burned several times under the Soviet times, but local inhabitants and pilgrims from all over the Lithuania rapidly have replaced the crosses upon the sacred hill. Since the 1985, the Hill of the Crosses has been left in peace, so the whole area is now covered with hundreds of thousands of crosses, rosaries, pictures of Jesus and the saints.

Kaunas capital of Lithuania between the wars in 1920-1940, but the history of the city began in the 13th century when the biggest stone bastion in Lithuania was built here. 

The city's main landmarks include a slim, white Town Hall with its photogenic Baroque features, the Vytautas Church and the Hanza Merchant House. The Town Hall was built in the 16th century and is often referred to as the "white swan". The Hanza Merchant House, the most beautiful Gothic building in the city, also goes by the name of Perkunas House. Perkūnas was once a pagan god of the Lithuanians, a similar figure to the ancient Greeks' Zeus.

Klaipeda, Lithuania's third-biggest city (population 201,800), is not just any ordinary port; it is the northernmost ice-free port in the Baltic states. With a distinctive architecture that is quite unique in Lithuania, influenced by the styles of its northern neighbours, it offers its visitors a delightful chance to explore a small but very cozy Old Town with quaint, reconstructed merchants' houses and converted warehouses that have kept their original exterior timber beams.

Grutas Park an open-air museum with an amazing collection of Soviet sculptures, busts, Lenins and other relics of the Soviet era. More than 50 comically posed sculptures of Soviet leaders, some of them monstrous in size, are divided into alcoves along trails that twist through the forest.