5/5 – Trakai Castle

This afternoon, we are visiting the Trakai Castle located on an island in middle of Lake Galve, about a half an hour’s drive from Vilnius without traffic. We are hitting traffic though, so it was more like an hour’s drive, although toward the end, it is very scenic as we drive into the little town of Trakai, past all the traditionally built homes – that are still protected today and cannot be rebuilt in any other fashion, if at all.

A short walk through the well preserved city brings us to the entrance to the castle, over a long wooden bridge. The castle was built in the 14th Century by the Grand Duke of Lithuania Kestutis and became the capital of Lithuania. The capital, centuries later, was eventually transferred to Vilnius for better strategic location. The small village (about 6,000 population) and the castle are surrounded by 7 lakes which makes for a lovely scenic outing.

Crossing the bridge after our group photo, we are admitted into the huge courtyard of the castle, complete with stockades and some weird iron cage. Oh yeah – we can’t resist these!

Next, we cross over the moat, to the six story castle proper, where it is all medieval gothic red brick stone and wooden stair galleries. The wood must have been added later for all us visitors, because there are these really cool – and treacherous – red brick staircases curving around to the upper floors in each corner of the building.

Inside, up on the 2nd floor, there are different rooms with stained glass windows, intricate brick inlays and chandeliers, a chapel, the thrones for the Grand Duke and Duchess plus an ancient, but super gorgeous tapestry hung against the bricks.

We take the opportunity to stop for some quick photos (as long as we have others around to help – so much better than our selfies!) on the upper balcony before carefully making our way down the brick staircase to the ground level.

Sweet! Back outside the castle, we walk around the exterior perimeter, with more gorgeous views….

…before making our way back to the “mainland” for some time on our own before re-boarding our coach to take us back into town for an evening on our own.

Stuck in evening traffic, it takes us even longer to get back into the city, but really, who cares? There is nothing official planned, so there is no rush. Once back, we head off to the mall next door to try out the restaurant on the top floor – which is a cool wood fired grill place, aptly named The Grill Terrace. Creative. Nonetheless, the food is good (we did not opt for the grilled plates) and there are great views across Vilnius. What more can we ask? We end up sharing everything, first a salad, because, well, we’ve not had anywhere near enough greens on this trip! And then crispy calamari and a very good “meat soup” that is essentially Lithuanian chili.

After dinner, we walk over to the cherry blossom garden next to the hotel. There are 200 trees planted here as a gift to Vilnius from the Japanese Government. The trees were planted ont he 100th anniversary of the birth of a Japanese man who saved thousands of Jews from Lithuania (and Germany and Poland) during the second world war. It is one of those beautiful, but totally unexpected, surprises found here in these very interesting countries!