Castle ruins of Vilnius Lithuania

A view of the castle

My second day in Vilnius, after visiting the Lithuanian Archives in search of my family history,  I again met Pedro in the afternoon and he showed me around. We walked to the Gediminas Tower, or specifically, Gediminas Tower. It is the last standing part of the Upper Castle, which is what remains of Vilnius castle complex, hoping to get there while it was still open.

Getting up to the castle tower

You can walk up a nice path on the hill or you can walk around to the river side and take the funicular.

Riding up in the funicular.

For speed, we opted to walk around to the front, the river side, and took the funicular, then walked down. (I walked up the next time I returned.)

We arrived at the castle around 5 and the funicular was still running. A funicular ticket was 3.50 Lita. (One Lita was 38¢, so $1.33. At the end of 2014 Lithuania was to change over to Euros as they were already part of the EU.)

Coming out of the funicular, Pedro stopped to take some photos.

The view as we exit the funicular

This the view from the top of the hill, at the castle. This is the River Neris. I told Pedro I’d like to walk around the area across the river here. It’s nothing special, he replied, as it is comprised of businesses.

The tower you see here is Gediminas Tower. It is the last standing part of the Upper Castle in Vilnius.

Here’s what was going on on the backside of the tower. This is actually a view from a street below. I took this photo on the way to the tower.

There is a museum in the tower but we were too late to go into it.

Actually, I came up to the castle again with a couple of other hostel folks a few days later and again didn’t go into the museum.

As you can see, Elena and I had some fun with the scenery there.

I’m not always into reading history and seeing artifacts.

This is the official museum information.

This sign explains a bit about the castle’s history.

Walking down from the castle