Vilnius travel guide

Top 10 sights in Vilnius

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

1. 

   1© Augustas Didžgalvis · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Užupis

   A quarter across the river that declared itself an independent republic on April Fool's Day 1997, with a constitution posted on plaques in dozens of languages — everyone has the right to be idle, and a dog has the right to be a dog. It has an angel on a column and a president who plays trumpet.

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2. 

   2© Gytis Grižas https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16452479 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Vilnius Old Town

   Three and a half square kilometres of medieval and baroque streets, one of the largest surviving old towns in northern Europe and World Heritage since 1994. It was built and rebuilt by Lithuanians, Poles, Jews, Russians and Germans in turn, and reads accordingly.

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3. 

   3© Lestat (Jan Mehlich) · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Vilnius Cathedral

   The cathedral, rebuilt in neoclassical form between 1783 and 1801 on a site where a pagan temple and then a Gothic church had stood. The chapel of St Casimir inside is baroque and marbled; the Soviets used the building as a picture gallery.

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4. 

   4© BigHead · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Gediminas' Tower

   The surviving tower of the upper castle on the hill above the old town, rebuilt in brick in the fifteenth century. A funicular saves the climb, and the Lithuanian flag on top was raised there in October 1988 for the first time since the occupation.

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5. 

   5

   Gate of Dawn

   The only one of the city's nine gates still standing, with a chapel above it holding the icon of the Mother of Mercy in beaten silver — venerated by Poles, Lithuanians and Belarusians alike, and one of the most visited pilgrimage images in eastern Europe.

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6. 

   6© Diliff · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Church of St. Anne, Vilnius

   A Flamboyant Gothic church of red brick raised about 1500 on the bank of the Vilnia, its west front worked from thirty-three shapes of moulded brick. Napoleon is said to have wished he could carry it back to Paris in his palm; it anchors the UNESCO listing of the old town.

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7. 

   7© Marcin Białek · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Presidential Palace of Lithuania

   A palace of the sixteenth century that has housed bishops, Russian governors-general and now the president. Napoleon stayed in it on the way to Moscow in 1812 and again during the retreat, and Kutuzov moved in after him.

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8. 

   8© Gytis Grižas https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16452479 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Cathedral Square

   The square in front of the cathedral, with the free-standing bell tower on it. A tile in the paving marks the end of the Baltic Way of August 1989, when two million people joined hands in a chain six hundred kilometres long from here to Tallinn.

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9. 

   9© Scotch Mist · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Vilnius

   A baroque church in Antakalnis paid for by Michal Kazimierz Pac to mark the expulsion of Muscovite troops from Vilnius after six years of occupation. Its whitewashed interior carries some 2,000 stucco figures by Giovanni Pietro Perti, a scheme without equal in Europe.

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10. 

    10© Darius Smalskys · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Vilnius TV Tower

    A tower of 1980 rising three hundred and twenty-six metres, the tallest structure in Lithuania. Soviet troops stormed it on 13 January 1991 and killed fourteen unarmed people defending it; a memorial and crosses stand at the base.

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Popular tickets & tours in Vilnius

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1. 

   1© Alma Pater · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Vilna Ghetto

   Two ghettos the Germans created in September 1941 in the old Jewish quarter of a city that had been called the Jerusalem of the North, with over a hundred synagogues and prayer houses. Around ninety-five per cent of Lithuania's Jews were killed, most of them shot in the pits at Paneriai outside the city.

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2. 

   2© Terminator216 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights

   A museum in the former KGB headquarters on the main avenue, with the cells, the padded interrogation room and the execution chamber in the basement kept as they were. The names of those killed are carved into the outer wall at street level.

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3. 

   3© Augustas Didžgalvis · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania

   The palace of the grand dukes, demolished by the Russian administration in 1801 and rebuilt between 2002 and 2018 on its excavated foundations as a full reconstruction. Whether it should have been rebuilt at all is still argued in Lithuania; the excavated cellars are the best part.

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4. 

   4© BigHead · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Vilnius Castle Complex

   The castles on the confluence of the Neris and the Vilnia: the upper castle on the hill, the lower castle with the ducal palace, and a third, the crooked castle, which burned in 1390 and was never rebuilt. Together they were the seat of a state that once reached the Black Sea.

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5. 

   5© Stroncis · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Vingis Park

   The largest park in Vilnius, 162 hectares beside a bend of the Neris. Its Lithuanian name means the bend, and a footbridge links it to Žvėrynas.

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6. 

   6© Guillaume Speurt from Vilnius, Lithuania · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Three Crosses

   Three white concrete crosses on a hill above the old town, first raised in the seventeenth century in memory of Franciscans said to have been martyred there. The Soviets pulled the monument down and buried it in 1950; the fragments were dug up and it was rebuilt in 1989.

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7. 

   7© Pudelek (Marcin Szala) · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Church of St. Casimir, Vilnius

   The first baroque church in Vilnius, begun by the Jesuits in 1604 and finished in 1618 for the newly canonised Casimir. Its dome is shaped like a grand ducal crown; the Soviets ran it as a museum of atheism before it returned to worship in 1991.

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8. 

   8© Diliff · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Church of St. Johns, Vilnius

   The university church, founded in 1387 and rebuilt after fire by Johann Christoph Glaubitz in the 1740s in Vilnian baroque. Ten altars crowd its east end, and the free-standing belfry beside it, at 68 metres, is the tallest tower in the old town.

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9. 

   9© BigHead · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Cathedral of the Theotokos, Vilnius

   An Orthodox cathedral founded in 1346, and from 1415 the mother church of Orthodoxy in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Rebuilt repeatedly, it is now the seat of the Russian Orthodox diocese and stands beside the river below the old town.

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    Orthodox Church of the Holy Spirit, Vilnius

    The chief Orthodox church of Lithuania, rebuilt between 1749 and 1753 in Vilnian baroque by Johann Christoph Glaubitz. Beneath the altar lie the relics of the martyrs Anthony, John and Eustathius, killed in 1347 and dressed in robes whose colour changes with the church year.

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