Day 515: Exploring Vilnius

The centre of Vilnius is a World Heritage site, mainly for the several layers of history. As with the other Baltic states, Lithuanian history is intertwined with those of its neighbours - Poland, Sweden, Russia, Prussia and so on, and each of them have variously owned it and had an influence on it.

We got out early and spent most of the day wandering around filming various bits and pieces. One highlight was St Anne's church, a brick Gothic structure that would've looked right at home in Belgium or the Netherlands.

Checked out several other areas too, including the large Jewish ghetto which was almost completely destroyed during the Nazi occupation 1941-44. There was once hundreds of synagogues in Vilnius and a thriving Jewish community - these days there is only one synagogue left.

Big downpour in the late afternoon so we retreated to our room where we holed up for a while, eventually heading out later for some traditional Lithuanian pancakes - essentially large hash browns topped with sour cream, very delicious.Weiterlesen