Vilnius: The secret European city famous for hot air balloons and history that tourists are yet to discover

“Soft landings,” exclaims Valentas Karpinskis, as he slaps my bottom with a grin.

It’s the ultimate night of my four-night travel to find the delights of Vilnius, Lithuania – and certainly essentially the most unforgettable.

Valentas, a burly sizzling breeze balloon pilot, had moments previous all set fireplace to a couple of strands of my hair earlier than extinguishing the flame with a spray of glowing wine as he baptised me a ‘Duke from Trakai’.

The ordinary rituals speed park at nightfall in a emptied grassland beside a railway series at the outskirts of Lithuania’s compact capital, to mark the final touch of my maiden airborne voyage in a wicker basket.

Balloon flights (from €150/£128 according to particular person) are a prevailing hobby right here and feature change into synonymous with a town which utmost date celebrated its 700th per annum.

My flying, signalling the beginning of the season, which runs from April till October, glides over the within reach puddle hotel of Trakai. In contrast to maximum alternative Eu towns, accommodating govt laws additionally allow passengers to go with the flow immediately above the historical impaired the city.

Attracting 46,000 guests from the United Kingdom in 2023, Vilnius is rather uncharted range as a shorten crack for Brits – a truth willingly stated through locals.

“Please promise not to confuse the Baltics and the Balkans,” urges excursion information Lina Dusevičienė, again on terra firma.

Frustration at Lithuania often being muddled with neighbouring nations may be expressed all through my keep, date I’m talented a T-shirt through the vacationer board emblazoned with the tongue-in-cheek slogan: ‘Nobody knows where Vilnius is.’

The population used to be the primary to claim self rule from the Soviet Union, in 1990, and is the most important and maximum southerly of the 3 Baltic states.

House to round 2.8million public, it lies at the japanese shore of the Baltic Sea, south of Latvia, date additionally sharing borders with Poland, Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

Vilnius, within the south-west of the rustic, may also be reached from the United Kingdom in round two hours and 45 mins, with direct flights working from Luton, Stansted and London Town airports.

So, why must travellers project in the course of the Iron Curtain to this actual nook of Europe?

“Vilnius has an absolutely gorgeous landscape in the way it combines the city and nature in a very organic way,” says Lina all through an informative walk in the course of the middle of her house the city, which used to be added to the UNESCO International Heritage record 30 years in the past.

“We are resembling many European capitals but in our own way.”

Along with herbal good looks, I in finding peaceful Vilnius is fitted to structure fans, historical past buffs, gourmands and thrill-seekers homogeneous.

We wander alongside cobbled streets flanked through Baroque structures, via old fashioned college courtyards and in entrance of the presidential palace earlier than arriving on the columns of the neoclassical cathedral.

Top above us atop a inexperienced mound is Gediminas’ Tower – named nearest town’s 14th century foundation father and accessed through a funicular (€1/£86p every manner) or a steep climb (isolated).

The implementing landmark (front from €6/£5) is the remnants of the Higher Fortress and overlooks the confluence of the Neris and Vilnia rivers, the ultimate of which gave Vilnius its title, in addition to the medieval centre.

Heading south, Lina leads us up Pilies gatvė, the impaired the city’s oldest boulevard, moment pavement cafes and the Space of Signatories the place, in 1918, the rustic’s operate of self rule used to be ratified.

Lithuania due to this fact persevered a stormy twentieth century, with brutal Nazi rule all through the 2nd International Struggle sandwiched between spells of Soviet repression.

The ones black days are impressive widely within the Museum of Occupations and Self-rule Fights (€6/£5) and the recently-opened Museum of Tradition and Id of Lithuanian Jews (€3/£2.50).

Vilnius’ Jewish society, referred to as Litvaks, used to be decimated from round 58,000 to not up to 3,000 below Nazi command, a harrowing duration honored through town’s ghetto memorial on the finish of Stiklių gatvė.

But their tradition, in a park Napoleon seemingly dubbed “the Jerusalem of the North”, continues to thrive.

I crack up the training however sombre museum visits through preventing for lunch at Baleboste (the time period for an effective Jewish housewife) upcoming door to Halės Marketplace, to pattern commonplace Litvak delicacies.

Cutlery isn’t required as I tied locals in dunking bagels into tasty bowls of shakshuka (eggs poached in a sauce of tomatoes, olive oil, peppers, onion and garlic, €9/£7.72) and forshmak (herring blended with egg and onion, €6/£5) earlier than chewing imberlach, a candy, highly spiced confection made with ginger (€5/£4 according to 100g).

Then, I discuss with Lokys, a family-run eating place within the town’s medieval service provider area, to effort the vintage Lithuanian choices of cepelinai (potato dumplings filled with field meat, €15/£13) and saltibarščiai (€8/£7; lokys.lt/en/).

The second one dish, a chilly beetroot soup served with potatoes and kefir (a fermented drink containing are living micro organism and yeast), now has an Instagrammable annual red pageant held in its celebrate, with this date’s isolated tournament scheduled for June 1.

Longing for a mixture of historical past and journey, I proceed to arguably town’s maximum symbolic website online.

Status at 326.5 metres, Vilnius’ TV tower – the population’s tallest construction – dominates the skyline within the western suburbs.

Devastating occasions right here on January 13, 1991, when 14 civilians died date resisting an tried Soviet coup, cruel the tower is now ceaselessly etched in Lithuanian identification.

Next spending generation on the memorial wall commemorating the ones killed, a high-speed raise whisks me up 165 metres to the tower’s rotating viewing platform to be greeted through a bright landscape.

I’m impulsively given better admire of my setting as I slip into a security harness and step outdoor into blustery statuses to journey alongside the rim of the commentary deck (€39/£33 + a €16/£14 price tag to the visible terrace).

Tethered from my again to a sliding clamp, I revel in a couple of seasons within the territory of an future as I tentatively circumnavigate in sunshine adopted through cloud, downpour and downpour.

“Here it’s pretty windy so you can feel this adrenaline,” says younger teacher Matas Čiūta, encouraging me to sit down ailing and hold my toes over the threshold. “I like showing my city and this is the best view in Vilnius.”

It’s tough to no. However a question of hours next comes the breath-taking balloon experience.

In a while nearest start out, I gaze ailing from the gondola at a moose cow and two calves lumbering via a woodland clearing in a clumsy style distinctly at odds with our peace glide.

At our backs the solar is slowly surroundings, date forward are the fresh blue waters of Pond Galvė, peppered with 21 islands, certainly one of which accommodates the fairy tale-esque Trakai Fortress.

Intermittent whooshes of liquid propane momentarily crack the peace and heat our faces amid the cool night breeze earlier than Valentas brings us to field with a modest jump to start out his offbeat foundation regimen.

The casual rite features a concise historical past of ballooning, which originated in 18th century France and used to be first of all regarded as an aristocratic pursuit, therefore the bottle of fizz and my unutilized noble name.

“Everything we flew above is yours now,” provides Valentas. “With one small condition: you have to be at least one metre from the ground.”

Tantalisingly inside of simple achieve, the recognition of this miniature however remarkable nation is sure to leap.