10 reasons to visit Vilnius, Lithuania

Although Lithuania is not somewhere I would have considered visiting before, we recently hopped on a flight to its capital Vilnius and had an amazing time. You may not think much of this Baltic state, but hopefully, by the end of this post, you'll be booking your travel to this gorgeous city.

In an effort to sell Lithuania's capital city to you, I've written a list of ten reasons why you should put Vilnius high up on your list of places to visit.

1. The most popular cities in Europe usually have you paying over odds for your food, drink and travel. Vilnius is a relatively cheap and affordable place to visit, even with the weak Euro/Pound situation at the moment. We visited restaurants and found the bill to be around the same or cheaper than it would be here in the North of the UK.

2. Vilnius offers something completely different from what I've experienced before. I've been to the usual Spanish, French and German destinations but sitting next to Russia within the Baltic states, Lithuania boasts different food, an unusual language and so much to explore.

3. When walking into the old town of Vilnius you'll see that the architecture in this city is beautiful. There is such a fantasy vibe to most of the town with its exquisite colourful buildings towering around you.





4. In Vilnius, there are lots of places to eat and drink. Although it takes a little bit of research and a map to find what you're looking for when you do you'll see the vast selection of cuisines and settings. Whilst there we ate Italian, American and Indian although we missed out on eating their local Lithuanian food which was readily available with many authentic restaurants dotted around the city.

5. Getting around Vilnius is really easy to do on foot. You'll have to take a really comfy pair of trainers as the terrain isn't always smooth, think lots of cobbles, but its easy enough to get around with a trusty map. We walked all throughout the day time, only taking taxis at night to get to restaurants for our dinner.

6. Another great thing about Vilnius is that there is no real language barrier. As it's a city, most places have a relatively good understanding of the English language. Although we did try to learn some words in Lithuanian, its a tricky language to master and we found that we could get by easily as lots of the menus, signs and plaques had English translations.

7. In our guide book, it states that "it is not an exaggeration to say that Lithuania is one of the safest countries to visit in Europe". Although we continued to be vigilant and keep our belongings close whilst on our trip, we did feel better knowing this and the atmosphere in the town felt quite safe when we were out and about.

8. Whilst in Vilnius we felt that there was a very laid back atmosphere with none of the hustle and bustle you'd find in other cities. We did visit during the week, so it may be different on weekends, but after speaking to a girl who studies over there, she confirmed our thoughts and said it was very chilled out.

9. As with many other European cities, Vilnius has a lot of history to offer. When we climbed to Gediminas Castle on our first day, as well as learning about the castle itself, we also learnt about the Baltic Way which was extremely interesting and eye-opening. Throughout our trip, we learnt the history of the many buildings we came across.

10. Finally, before coming across flights to Vilnius on Skyscanner, we hadn't heard of the Lithuanian capital city and had never considered visiting. At only £80.00 for return flights for two and a hotel for three nights at £130, this was a very cheap trip that we couldn't pass up. Vilnius is a relatively 'new' destination for people to travel to which offers everything other European cities do, with the opportunity to discover a place not touched upon by many as of yet.

So what do you think? Is Vilnius now on your travel destination list? I hope it is, as it's honestly a lovely place to visit and we'd be back again in a heartbeat.

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Fancy a steak? El Gaucho, York

For my boyfriend's birthday we had a day trip to York. As we are major foodies when visiting new places, we decided to scope out where we would eat before we arrived. We chose a place for breakfast(brunch) and a place for tea. Unfortunately we arrived after the place we'd chose for breakfast stopped serving so had to find a cafe for a greasy English brekkie.

The place we chose for dinner was a suggestion by one of Matt's work colleagues. It was an Argentine steak house called El Gaucho. Me and Matt are lovers of steak and love to try new places so this was perfect for us.

As per usual we had a bit of trouble finding the place but that is just our bad sense of direction. It was down a street which had a lot of other lovely looking restaurants on. Inside it is quite small but there were a lot of tables dotted about as well as lots of random Argentine related art on the walls.

We both chose to have the sirloin steak - me choosing the 11oz and Matt choosing the 14oz! When it came it tasted lovely! It was full of flavour. I accidentally knocked all my salad off my plate whilst trying to cut my steak just after I took the above picture. I told the hostess and she didn't seem to mind too much...oops!

I should mention before the steak we were given a basket of bread with some sort of herby/garlic butter to put on. It was soo nice. I wanted more than one slice but didn't want to ruin my dinner.

If you are in York on a night time (it opens at 6pm) you should definitely try this out.

Have you been before? Do you love steak as much as I do?!

Top sights in Florence - travel

I thought the best way to tell you about our trip to Florence would be to highlight a few sights from the trip that I thought you best know about. As you can imagine Florence is a beautiful city full of culture and history. We lapped up all the architecture and views of the city but neglected the art side of the trip. We walked a lot during the holiday but this meant we saw most of the city. Here are a few of our top picks.

Duomo + Bell Tower

The sheer size and beauty of these monuments will blow you away. 10 euros will get you up the Duomo and Bell Tower as well as gaining you access to the Cathedral and Bapistery. We ventured up the Duomo and the Bell Tower which I would highly recommend for the amazing views. Be mindful that there are a lot of steps! Here are a few snaps of the views at the top.

Ponte Vecchio

This bridge is always pretty busy and is full of jewellery and pawnshops, not very touristy. We decided it would be a better idea to walk to the to the two bridges either side of the Ponte Vecchio to see it's beauty in full and get some snaps. We also went back at night to see what it looked like in the dark.

Piazzale Michelangelo

We walked for ages until we came across this but it was very worth it. The views that you get of Florence are amazing, definitely worth the trek. There did seem to be quite a bit to see in the square but we just got pictures of the views.

These three are my top three but there are many more things that we saw.

Have you been to Florence, what did you see that I have missed?