This week’s dream: Discovering unfairly forgotten Lithuania
“Soon, Lithuania will be a fixture on those omnipresent lists of hot new travel destinations,” said Christopher Muther in The Boston Globe. “I suggest you think about visiting before that happens.” Not many tourists currently visit the Baltic state, despite its fun nightlife, beautiful beaches and architecture, and gorgeous yet affordable boutique hotels. The Soviet occupation of Lithuania from 1944 to 1990 left “a wound that’s still healing.” But the country is working to restore the palaces and museums from its pre-Soviet days, and it’s fascinating already. Riding in a hot-air balloon over Vilnius, the capital city, I could see where the medieval Old Town gives way to splashes of the Baroque era, a new downtown district, bland Soviet-era apartments, then suburbs and forest. It was “like studying the growth rings on a tree.”
Pride in Lithuanian cuisine is boosting a ripening Vilnius restaurant scene. The whole country was more than ready for the farm-to-table movement. “It wasn’t a trend—it was a necessity during the years of food shortages during Soviet occupation.” When I visited, foraging for mushrooms seemed like a national sport. At Sweet Root restaurant, I was handed a menu with a list of ingredients and told to figure out which ingredient appeared in each dish. I failed, “but what I ate was sensational.” Later, I explored Uzupis, a bohemian side of the Old Town that’s “so quirky it even has its own constitution.” Among its 38 articles: “A dog has the right to be a dog” and “People have the right to be unhappy.”
“History is important for planning your trip.” Last century, hundreds of thousands of Lithuanians were killed by the Nazis and Soviets, and others were deported en masse to Siberia. I made a point of visiting the Cold War Museum in Ploksciai, the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre in Vilnius, and the Hill of Crosses in Siauliai, where 100,000 of the Christian symbols once banned by the Soviets now compose a veritable forest. But don’t go looking for Lithuania’s dark past at the expense of appreciating its present. “I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t the beauty of Palanga, a charming beach town where I wish I had spent more time.”
At Vilnius’ Hotel Pacai (hotelpacai.com), doubles start at $164.