Nature has been generous to Lithuania. Although there are no mountains or great forests, the country’s beauty lies in the diversity of its landscape. This is a place of rolling hills and gentle plains; of quietly flowing rivers and lakes, which reflect the blueness of the sky. The largest river, the Nemunas, gathers and carries the waters of many tributaries to the Baltic Sea, wherein lies Lithuania’s famous “amber coast”. Called the Curonian Spit, it is a sixty mile-long bank of sand dunes and pine trees, which stretches from the southwest to the seaport of Klaip?da and encloses the vast Curonian Lagoon. For centuries, amber, Lithuania’s precious harvest of the sea, has been washed onto these golden sands.

Of course, Lithuania’s main attraction is Vilnius, the capital featuring architectural diversity from Gothics to Baroque and Classicism. For outsiders anyway, Vilnius is a hard city to pin down. It’s not quite Eastern European, not quite Scandinavian, not Russian, and not German. It’s not even quite Lithuanian. This ambiguity, the diversity of influences, actually gives the city its unique character and charm.