Vilnius

Coffee hill

Recently opened new coffee place with simply awesome chai tea, good prices and very friendly baristas. Wi-Fi and journals also available. While coffee bars a la Coffee inn, Vero café and so on recently become quite popular in Vilnius as people are running all the time and coffee-to-go become new trend, this is one place I simply adore because it’s nice just to sit there and enjoy cup of tea with journal without rushing anywhere and it’s not like Coffee inn, always full of loud teenagers sitting there basically all day., and once again – best chai tea in whole city!
I'm just really surprised that they opened cafe at Mykolas Romeris universty. Strange because MRU has best machine coffee i ever tasted and they have really good coffee at canteen. I fail to imagine how douche person should be to pay seven times more for the same coffee.

Vokiečių 18a, 01130 Vilnius, Lithuania
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Alaus namai

Alaus namai (Beer house) is one of the nicest places to do traditional Lithuanian sport – glass lifting. It’s located in city center – close to white bridge (going there you can enjoy view of city lights and ridiculous glass architecture of other riverside of Neris) on which there’s plate saying ‘don’t jump off the bridge, there’s people who cares about you’ or something like that, recently alternated as ‘don’t stay in Lithuania, there are countries which cares about you’. While glass lifting in bars can be hard to average Lithuanian with average income, this place is rather cheap and there you can find lots of different beer tastes, not same boring three kinds as in most of the bars where mostly only Švyturys, Kalnapilis and Greenbergen is known. And staff is always cool. Food there is very tasty too :)

http://www.alausnamai.lt/
A. Goštauto 8, Vilnius

Visų šventųjų baras

While all old town of Vilnius is full of nice cozy pubs and bars, this one is something special. Maybe it’s about it’s location (close to bus station, in the  heart of Vilnius’ old town), maybe atmosphere, but it’s always nice to come back here. Friendly staff, cheap and tasty beer – that’s just what you need :)
This bar is one of the small number of places i recommend if somebody asks my opinion as there are not so many places where you can get good lithunian beer for good price as most of the old town pubs are nowadays adapted for foreigners and lacks variety of local beer. Also most of them are overpriced, so finding place with good beer and good prices can be considered luck. Thanks whoever works with luck, VŠB is also not popular amongst tourists.

Visų šventųjų str. 7
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Enjoying nature

Somehow it’s suprising for me that I, the one who has allergy for big cities and loads of people, lives in capital. It’s comfortable here, because Vilnius is considered ‘small’ and always mistaken with Riga as Lithuania is ‘part of Russia, capital Riga, people speak only Russian/polish’ and my favorite places is non touristic ones.

I always enjoyed hiking and nature so one of my favorite ways to rest is hiking in regional parks. Around Vilnius there are few and most of them are easily reachable with public transport. Probably my favorite hiking tracks is near Dūkštos, name Karmazinai.

Recommend!

http://www.neriesparkas.lt/?id=87&l=2

Plum bum bar

Plum bum become one of my favorite places to hang out at instant. It is located in non touristic place, so it is not like one of many bars in main streets full of foreigners and slow staff. Plum bum is cosy, little bar with friendly staff, tasty food and nice parties from time to time. Definitely worth coming back :)
Especially for estonian cider. Plum bum somehow still is only place in Vilnius where is possible to get tasty real cider as most of bars sells cheap very not tasty liquid from Poland ( "Kiss" or "Fizz") whic they overprices till about 8 lt. 
Also they have very tasty meal for good prices.

A.Smetonos g. 2

I-II: 10:00 - 22:00 III-IV: 10:00 - 24:00 V: 10:00 - 4:00 VI: 18:00 - 4:00
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Sasha Song jazz club

Newest gem in town J

Juliaus Kalinsko/„15 minučių“ photo.

I decided to check this place as soon as I heard about it as it is located  very central and owner is popular singer Sasha Son(g). Wasn’t disappointed at all – very good daily menu, food really tasty, staff helpful and place really cozy. Definitely going back again, probably on one of live music evenings J

Vingrių 25, Vilnius

Sadly closed for summer.
http://www.sashajazz.com/

B Haus

Since I’m sweets addict, I’m always looking for new places where I would be able to satisfy that addiction. My newest find – small bakery/cafeteria “B haus”, situated in the middle of Totorių street. Chocolate  croissants are simply unforgettable!

B haus offers variety of home made bakery goods and also coffee. Really worth coming if you find yourself in the city centre J

B Haus

B Haus webpage and another one

Totorių str. 7

Bambalynė

If you are in Lithuania you already heard that phrase at least one time  - „in Lithuania there are two religions – bear and basketball – everybody drinks beer and everybody knos how to play basketball“, so where to look for good local beer? While in most pubs you can find only most popular beer brands like Švyturys, Kalnapilis, Utenos, there are few places you can try small breweries’ beer (in Lithuania beer is probably most popular drink and there’s about 70 small breweries and abou 10 bigger ones ) and one of them is situated just few steps from town hall. Bambalynė is beer basement which offers some snacks and also variety of local beers – about 50 different kinds of beer (it was counted that in Lithuania there are about 300 kinds of local beer). Cozy atmosphere, friendly staff and no mobile connection gives perfect chance to enjoy that. Also it is possible to buy some bottles – perfect gift for friends or family members at home.

Bambalynė also offers degustations – price is 40 lt (about 13 euro) for person. Degustation contains stories about chosen beer, snacks – fried bread, smoked Lithuanian meat, cheese and so.

Bambalynė (name is not fully translatable to english, but bambalis is russ-ianian phrase for plasti bottle containing alcoholic bewerages, usually 1 liter and alus means beer, so Bambalynė – plane where you can fiind beer in bigger than usual 0,33 liter bottle)

Stiklių str. 7

http://www.bambalyne.lt/?page_id=11

Church of St. Johns (lt. Jonų bažnyčia)

One of most interesting churches in Vilnius  (in tourist map i counted 31 church ) as it belongs not to the church as it is understood in Christianity, but to Vilnius university. Built in 1426 m, after baptism of Lithuania.

After Vilnius university’s beginning as Jesuit academy church was used mainly by proffesors, students, also as space for debates, defending theses, place to meet visiting kings. Nowadays all Vilnius university students gets their diplomas there, church also used as a place for some concerts.

In September 5^th of 1993 church was visited by then pope Jonas Paulius II.

Vilnius bishopric once wanted St. Johns church to belong to them, but didn’t succeed . Almost all the time during it’s history church belonged to university and after regaining independence it was returned to Vilnius university. Nowadays church’s events are organized by Vilnius university and rectors of church.

In summer of 2011 church tower was opened for tourists and now it’s possible to climb to 45 meters height and get wonderful view of all old town.  Inside tower you will also see Foucault's Pendulum, a device to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth (it’s the only one such device in Lithuania).

St John the Evangelista and St John the Baptist church (Jonų bažnyčia)

Šv. Jono st. 12

Open 10 – 17 every day

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view from top

Cukatos

Like coffee and homemade sweets? There’s a perfect place just for you (and me J ). Cukatos is small cozy coffee in the city center that offers variety of pies and coffees. Maybe lack of space and piles of pillows gives the sense that you are at home, sitting on soft couch, reading good book and enjoying warm pie and cup of coffee.

Cafeteria “Cukatos “ also offers free wireless internet, some books to read and possibility to order sweets. Don’t forget to try carrot pie – taste is unforgettable J

P.S. Just next door to “Cukatos” is second hand shop “Humana” which is the only second-hand shop in the city which has basement dedicated to original vintage clothes. Definitely worth sticking nose if you like that.


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