Why start in the Baltics' quiet corner
Lithuania gets skipped, and that works entirely in your favour. We spent ten days crossing the country from Vilnius to the Curonian Spit and rarely paid more than €25 for a hostel bed or €10 for a proper sit-down meal. The whole country runs on cheap, punctual trains and buses, distances are short, and English works fine with anyone under forty.
Go between late May and mid-September. July is warmest for swimming off the Spit, but June has eighteen-hour days and fewer German campervans.
Vilnius: three days minimum
Vilnius has the largest baroque old town in Eastern Europe, but the reason to linger is the neighbourhood of Užupis, a self-declared 'republic' across a small river with its own tongue-in-cheek constitution bolted to a wall in twenty languages. Climb Gediminas Hill at sunset, eat cold pink beet soup (šaltibarščiai) at a canteen-style valgykla for €4, and take the free walking tour — the guides are honest about the Soviet years in a way museums often aren't. Dorm beds run €15–22.
Trakai: the half-day that earns a full one
Trains to Trakai leave Vilnius roughly hourly, cost about €2, and take forty minutes. The red-brick island castle on Lake Galvė is the postcard, but stay past the tour-bus window: rent a rowboat (€10/hour), then eat kibinai — hand-sized pastries of the Karaite community — warm from the bakery on the main street.
Kaunas: the interwar capital
An hour and a quarter by train from Vilnius (€6–8), Kaunas was Lithuania's capital between the wars and its modernist architecture earned UNESCO status. It feels more lived-in than Vilnius — students everywhere, a long pedestrian axis from the old town to the New Town, and the sobering Ninth Fort memorial on the edge of the city. One night is enough; two if you like brutalism and cheap craft beer.
The Hill of Crosses
Take the train or bus to Šiauliai (about two hours, €8), then a local bus or a €10 taxi twelve kilometres north. Nothing prepares you for it: a low double mound bristling with an estimated two hundred thousand crosses, from house-sized crucifixes to rosaries knotted onto rosaries. The Soviets bulldozed it three times; each time it grew back overnight. Wind moves through the metal ones and the whole hill quietly chimes. Go early, before the coaches.
Klaipėda and across to the Spit
Buses run from Šiauliai to Klaipėda in about two and a half hours (€10). The port city itself is a one-evening stop — half-timbered warehouses, a decent brewery or two — because the real destination is across the lagoon. The passenger ferry to Smiltynė costs about €1.20 and takes five minutes; from there bus 79 runs the length of the Curonian Spit to Nida (roughly €5, one hour), or you can cycle the 50 km bike path through pine forest with the Baltic hissing on your right.
Nida: the payoff
Nida sits near the Kaliningrad border under the Parnidis Dune, a 50-metre wall of bare sand that turns amber at sunset. Thomas Mann built a summer house here and you can see why: brown-sailed fishing boats, smoked eel sold from garden gates, weathervanes carved like folk paintings. Climb the dune for sunrise when the lagoon is flat as poured metal. Guesthouses run €35–50 for a double in season — the one splurge of the trip, and worth every cent.
Budget and logistics
Count on €40–55 a day including beds, food and transport. Buy train tickets at ltglink.lt and buses at autobusubilietai.lt a day ahead in July. From Nida you can bus back to Klaipėda and onward to Riga, or loop back to Vilnius in about four hours — either way, you'll leave wondering why nobody told you about this country sooner.
