I really like our hotel here in Vilnius, the Narutis Hotel. It has a four story Central covered courtyard.
This morning we set out to explore Vilnius. We started at the Cathedral.
Then we climbed to the top of the Bell Tower. It’s history goes back to the thirteenth century. The stairs to the top were steep. We had an up close view of the bells and the old clock. We also had a great view of the town and surrounding countryside.
From the Bell Tower we walked to the Museum of Genocide Victims. The museum is in the building that was Gestapo headquarters and then KGB headquarters. I thought it was very well done. All the displays had captions in Lithuanian and English. The museum tells The story of the occupations first by the Germans and then by the Russians. The Lithuanians suffered oppression and horrendous numbers of deaths and deportations. Lithuanian has only been free of occupation since 1990.
On our way back to the hotel we stopped for coffee and strudel.
This evening we had dinner at a brewery. The wait staff all had “Support Your Local Brewery” in English on the back of their T-shirts. We finally had beer sausage and sauerkraut. One of the beers was a hemp beer made from cannabis seed. 
We would like to visit Vilnius again someday when it is not so wet and cold. Trakai Island Castle not far from here sounds like it would be beautiful and very interesting.
Marion's Blog 