Christmas in Vilnius

On arrival at Vilnius airport (VNO), your chauffeur meets you and drives the short distance into the city to the Grand Hotel Vilnius on Cathedral Square. For Advent the square below is given over to the Christmas market, its wooden stalls and the tall city tree lit against the early dark. Once you have settled in, your guide walks you out into the market for a first cup of karštas vynas, the Lithuanian mulled wine. The evening closes with a welcome dinner built around Kūčios, the twelve meatless dishes of the Lithuanian Christmas Eve table: rye bread, herring, poppy-seed dishes, and kūčiukai, small poppy-seed buns soaked in poppy milk. Your host talks you through the tradition and its symbolism as you go, whatever the calendar date; the twelve dishes are served all Advent for exactly this reason.

After breakfast your guide leads you deeper into the Old Town, the largest baroque quarter in northern Europe, under a dusting of snow. The morning takes in St Anne's Church, said to have caught Napoleon's eye, and the quiet inner courtyards of Vilnius University, one of the oldest in northern Europe. From there you walk to the Gate of Dawn, the last surviving city gate and a working shrine for both Catholic and Orthodox pilgrims, then across the river into Užupis, the self-declared artists' republic with its own tongue-in-cheek constitution nailed to a wall. In the afternoon your guide brings you to a private amber atelier, a small warm room out of the cold, where Baltic gold is graded, cut and set into jewellery by hand. The evening on Cathedral Square is your own, the market open late under the lit tree, gingerbread and mulled wine at every second stall.

After breakfast your driver takes you the short distance to Trakai, on a peninsula between three lakes half an hour from Vilnius. You cross the wooden footbridge to the island castle, Lithuania's most photographed, its red brick and the frozen or ice-rimmed lake around it a different scene from the summer postcards. Your guide walks you through the castle's halls before leading you along the Karaim community's single main street: Turkic-speaking, Karaite by faith, settled here in the 14th century as the Grand Duke's personal guard, their kenesa and low wooden houses still standing much as they did. Lunch is kibinai, the Karaim pastry, savoury or sweet, made to the recipe the community has always used. In the afternoon your driver brings you back to Vilnius, with time for a last look at the lake before the light goes.

After breakfast your driver takes you northwest to Kaunas, Lithuania's second city and, between the wars, its temporary capital while Vilnius lay under Polish control. Kaunas Town Hall Square keeps its own Christmas tree and market, smaller and quieter than the capital's, with a character of its own. Your guide walks you through Kaunas Castle, at the meeting point of the Nemunas and Neris rivers, then through the New Town's remarkable run of interwar modernist architecture, built in a hurry when Kaunas briefly had to look like a capital. In the afternoon, weather allowing, you visit Pažaislis Monastery a little outside the centre, its Italian baroque facade striking against the snow and the frozen lagoon beside it. You return to Vilnius by evening, with time to spare before dinner on your own.

Your last morning is unhurried: a final breakfast on Cathedral Square, then time to walk the market stalls once more for gingerbread, amber, or anything else you meant to buy earlier in the week. When you are ready, your chauffeur drives you to Vilnius airport (VNO) for your departure, the same guide and driver who met you seeing you off. Five days, one capital, and a proper introduction to a Lithuanian Christmas.