From The Sunday Times Travel Magazine

It might not receive its title of the European Capital of Culture until 2009, but there’s no excuse for holding off until then.

Lithuania’s pocket-sized capital – once the main city of a territory that stretched all the way to the Black Sea – already has more than enough top-notch sights and unpretentious charm for the most jaded visitor.

Cobbled streets are lined with Romanesque churches and Baroque mansions. Sleek cocktail bars heave with beautifully dressed carousers until late into the night. Museums and galleries showcase everything from ancient folk customs to of-the-moment video installations.

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It’s glorious at any time of year, but in spring there’s an extra tinge of excitement in the air. The Old Town, its historic buildings spruced up after decades of Soviet neglect, is entrancing when the sun shines on gilded domes and gleaming white stucco.

Cafe and restaurant terraces emerge from their winter hibernation – and you can interrupt the sightseeing with some gentle people-watching and a bite of home-cooked Lithuanian cuisine.

And if the sun ducks behind a cloud, the great indoors beckons: a brace of eclectic museums; a pair of art galleries; and ornately decorated, incense-scented churches.

Shopping is a treat, not so much in the main streets, where every other emporium sells amber and linen souvenirs, but in the side lanes where you’ll uncover covetable gear by home-grown designers. And then there’s the nightlife. The Old Town’s bars and clubs are anything but old-fashioned, whether they’ve gone for clean-cut minimalism or something quirkier in the way of interior design. Just get your round in before the crowds arrive next year.

OLD AND GORGEOUS

The UNESCO-listed Old Town is a glorious collection of largely Baroque buildings daubed in soft blue, moss green, buttermilk yellow and dusky pink. Be bold and explore as much as possible: unpromising passageways off narrow cobbled lanes can lead to anything from Renaissance courtyards to lovely tourist-free cafes. Walk, or take the funicular, to the top of Gediminas Hill for the best views over ancient rooftops.

You’ll find the mummified remains of a trio of martyred saints, old ladies kissing icons and the intoxicating smell of incense within the multicoloured and gilded walls of the Baroque Church of the Holy Spirit (Ausros Vartu 10; 00 370 5212 7765), Lithuania’s main Orthodox church. Gleaming onion domes and cupolas, as well as spires, may crown many religious buildings in the Old Town, but as interiors go this is the city’s biggest show-stopper by miles.

Squint at the array of gold-encrusted church vestments, icons and altarware at the Applied Art Museum (Arsenalo 3A; 00 370 5262 8080, www.ldm.lt; 80p). Among the other treasures of an ecclesiastical bent, the huge carved wooden crosses that once littered the countryside have a curiously pagan feel – not surprising, perhaps, as Lithuania didn’t fully embrace Christianity until the 14th century.

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