Sightseeing around Vilnius

Although I was up at 5.00am this morning to catch my flight, it did mean I got in to Vilnius, Lithuania just after lunch giving me a few hours this afternoon to do a bit of sightseeing around the Old Town. Vilnius Old Town is one of the last surviving medieval old towns in East Europe and was about 5 or 10 minutes in a taxi from the hotel I'm staying in.

I started off by the Cathedral Square and had a quick look around. There was a shopping street just opposite with a bunch of upscale boutiques, cafes as so on, where I got a few more Euros changed and had a quick drink.

After that it was a walk over to the main bridge, and then along to Gediminas Castle - a medieval castle right on top of a huge hill behind the cathedral, a place that you've got to visit (and climb up) if you visit Vilnius.

The picture doesn't do the walk justice actually - it's a good twenty minute steep uphill walk up to the castle, but when you're up there the view is worth it. Apparently the castle is the landmark that everyone occupying Lithuania has had to capture, over the years there have been many flags flying there and now it's the flag of the Republic of Lithuania. Well worth the climb (on a very hot day, actually...)

After that (and finding the fenicular railway, on the way down....) I had a half hour walk around the historic old town, around by the university and down towards Pilies Street - a very pretty area, a nice place infact to go on a weekend break if you get a chance.

Anyway, that's enough of the tourist bit now. Time to go up to my room and start working through the examples for tomorrow's seminar, in particular the ones on Slowly Changing Dimensions and Automatic Corrections that I want to show off in a bit more detail that last time. All the photos are on flickr, and I'll be hopefully be back tomorrow with an update on the seminar.