It's Raining 🌧☔️☔️....

As we made our way 🚶‍♂️🚶‍♀️ to the Old Town of Vilnius, we could see the sky getting blacker and darker. As the skies opened, we were lucky enough to be across the road from a lovely Italian restaurant that didn’t bat an eye lid when asked if we could come in and just have a drink. The best thing about this restaurant was that they sold lovely wine 🍷🍷. So while the heavens opened and people sheltered 🌦🌧☔️ in doorways, we sat nice and warm just getting wet 🍷🍷on the inside. Once the rain stopped, we paid our bill and ventured out carrying on further down the street finding ourselves in Cathedral Square which is dominated by the Neoclassical cathedral, dating from the thirteenth century when a wooden church was built here on the site of a temple dedicated to Perkųnas, the god of thunder. The highlight of the airy, vaulted interior is the opulent Chapel of St Casimir, the patron saint of Lithuania. Next to the cathedral on the square is the white belfry, once part of the fortifications of the vanished Lower Castle. Between the cathedral and the belfry lies a small coloured tile with stebuklas (miracle) written on it, marking the spot from where, in 1989, two million people formed a human chain that stretched all the way to Tallinn, Estonia, to protest against Soviet occupation.
Around the corner from Cathedral Square is Gediminas’ Castle Tower, which is the remaining fortification tower of the Upper Castle. Legend has it that the Grand Duke Gediminas dreamt of an Iron Wolf howling at the top of this hill, which he took as a prophecy of the great city that would one day stand in this place. The hill is where he eventually built a wooden castle.
Grand Duke Vytautas completed the city’s first brick castle in 1409. Gediminas’ Tower has changed purposes since then, including being used as the city’s first telegraph building in 1838. The Lithuanian flag was first flown at the top of the tower a century ago. The Vilnius Castle Museum was opened in 1960, and in 1968, it became a subdivision of the Lithuanian National Museum.Read more