Best of Lithuania

On arrival at Vilnius airport (VNO), your chauffeur meets you and drives you the short distance into the city to the Grand Hotel Kempinski, where you check in with views over Cathedral Square and the Gediminas tower. Once settled, your private guide leads you into the old town, the largest baroque quarter in northern Europe and a UNESCO-listed labyrinth of courtyards and bell towers. Your party has after-hours access to a baroque church interior that the public rarely sees lit, opened for your group alone. As the evening draws in, your guide walks you to one of the city's Michelin tables for the welcome dinner. The lamplit lanes around the square are quiet by the time you return, and the rest of the night is your own.

Your guide collects you before the city wakes and takes you to the launch site, where you board the hot-air balloon for a flight that Vilnius, almost uniquely in Europe, permits over its historic centre. You drift above baroque rooftops and the river bends below as the morning opens. After landing, you return to the hotel for a relaxed breakfast, then cross the Vilnia bridge on foot into Užupis, the self-declared artists' republic, pausing at the constitution wall with its articles cast in dozens of languages. In the afternoon your guide leads you to a private amber atelier, where you watch Baltic gold being graded, cut and set into jewellery by hand. The evening is yours to spend on Cathedral Square as you please.

After breakfast your chauffeur drives you west through forest and lake country to Trakai, where a boat carries you across Lake Galvė to the red-brick island castle, the restored Gothic stronghold of the medieval grand dukes. Your guide walks you through its courtyards and battlements before lunch in the lakeside village with the Karaim community, who have served their signature kibinai pastries here for centuries. In the afternoon you continue by car to the Kernavė hill-forts, a UNESCO site that served as Lithuania's first capital, arriving in time for golden hour when the mounds are at their quietest. From there it is a short transfer to the IDW Esperanza Resort on its own private lake, where the lakeside spa and observatory await. Dinner and the evening are your own.

After breakfast you set off with your guide and chauffeur for the longer drive west to the Baltic coast, with stops along the way to break the journey. At the shore you board a private boat and cross the Curonian Lagoon to Nida, the painted fishing village on the Curonian Spit, a narrow UNESCO peninsula of pine forest and shifting dunes. The approach by water is deliberate: you arrive slowly, watching the spit rise from the lagoon rather than coming by road. On the water's edge, a working family welcomes you to their smokehouse for a tasting of smoked fish and gira, the local fermented bread drink. You check in to Hotel Nidos Banga, a few steps from the lagoon promenade. Dinner is at the hotel, and the first quiet evening on the spit is yours.

You rise early with your guide and walk to the Parnidis dune before breakfast, climbing to the great sundial that crowns the spit to watch the sun come up over the lagoon. Back in the village, breakfast waits at the hotel, and the morning continues at a slower pace with a visit to the Thomas Mann summer house, the modest hillside cottage where the writer spent his Nida summers, now a small museum to those years. The afternoon takes you to the water for a lagoon kayak along the reed-lined shallows. As dusk settles over the spit, a private sauna ritual awaits: heat, herbs and a cooling dip. With no transfer today and a second night in Nida ahead, the rhythm of the day is entirely yours.

After breakfast you cross back to the mainland and set off on the second of the longer driving days, your guide timing the route so you arrive at the Hill of Crosses near Šiauliai at a quiet hour. On a single mound stand more than 200,000 crosses, placed by pilgrims over generations, and reaching it when the crowds are thin lets the place hold its hush. From there your chauffeur drives you east into the Aukštaitija lake country, a region of forest, still water and old wooden villages, with stops as you please along the way. The day ends at Paliesius Manor, a meticulously restored 18th-century estate with its own lake and watermill spa near Ignalina. You settle in before a single-seating estate dinner from the manor's own kitchen, confirmed with the manor ahead of your stay given its limited capacity.

Your last morning begins on the water: a floating-sauna ritual on the manor lake at dawn, heat and herbs followed by a cool dip in the still water. After a final breakfast at Paliesius Manor, your guide leads you into the surrounding forest for a foraged lunch, gathering and tasting what the Aukštaitija woods offer in season. Before leaving the lakes, a mead tasting marks the close of the week, the honey wine with deep local roots. In the afternoon your chauffeur drives you back toward the capital and on to Vilnius airport (VNO) in good time for an evening departure. Your guide and chauffeur, the same pair who have been with you from the first evening, see you off at the terminal.