Vilnius

  Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania and one of the country's oldest cities. It stretches along both banks of the fast flowing Neris River, and is set among hills pine forests. Vilnius is very old city indeed. The honour for founding Vilnius is justly given to Gediminas (a Lithuanian Duke) in the year 1323. Having declared Vilnius his "royal town", Gediminas created the conditions for its subsequent growth as the political, economical and cultural center of Lithuania. Vilnius was the crossroads of important internal and international merchant routes, which led from the Baltic to the Black Sea and from Western Europe to the Middle East. Castles built on these routes (the Upper, the Lower, the Curve and others) composed one of the most powerful complexes of castles in Central and Eastern Europe north of the Danube at the end of the 14th century.
Vilnius city tour is a romantic acquaintance with Vilnius Old Town where you can feel the atmosphere of the city’ s history of the 16th -19th centuries while walking along its narrow winding streets or visiting the most exciting architectural and historic monuments: Vilnius Cathedral, erected on the historic and legendary site where pagan gods were worshipped and where Vilnius was founded as far back as the 13th century, a nearby Gediminas Castle on the hill rising above the city centre, the gem of the Lithuanian Gothic - the elegant St.Anne’s Church, the Vilnius University- the famous centre of science and enlightenment since its very foundation in 1579, the Gate of Dawn with a miraculous icon of Virgin Mary, to mention a few.

Trakai Castle – the former capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, 27 km to the west of Vilnius, is a favourite place for an outing. The Trakai Castle situated on an island in the midst of Lake Galve is the most famous and most photographed castle in Lithuania. The five-storey, redbrick fortifications were constructed by the Grand Duke Vytautas in the second half of 14th century. In the 14th century Vytautas invited his bodyguard of Tatars from Crimea to Trakai where they settled around the castle. Their descendants, the Karaites - a Turkish ethnic group - still give the royal town its distinctive touch.