Vilnius in 2 days, on foot

This 2-day self-guided walking plan for Vilnius covers 21 narrated sights in an easy day-by-day order. Each day is split into a morning and an afternoon loop, and every stop has a two to three minute audio story in the Gingerguide app.

You set the pace: this is a suggested order, not a schedule. Walk it in 2 days, or stretch it out. Reorder freely; Vilnius rewards a detour.

The Vilnius route at a glance

Day 1

Day 1 covers 11 stops over about 3.8 km as the crow flies, from Pilies Street to Gate of Dawn. ≈ 3.8 km between stops, straight line

Morning

1. Pilies Street: The Old Town's main pedestrian axis, running about 500 metres from Cathedral Square to Town Hall Square, lined with Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque facades and amber traders. 0.3 km to the next stop
2. Gediminas' Tower: The last red-brick tower of the Upper Castle on Gediminas Hill, largely rebuilt in the 1930s, now a museum with a rooftop viewpoint over the Old Town and its rivers. 0 km to the next stop
3. National Museum of Lithuania: Lithuania's largest museum of national history, ethnography and archaeology, housed in the New Arsenal below Gediminas Hill, with the monument to King Mindaugas standing outside its main entrance. 0.1 km to the next stop
4. Palace of the Grand Dukes: A full reconstruction, built between 2002 and 2018, of the grand-ducal residence demolished around 1801; now a national museum, with authentic cellars shown among rebuilt state rooms. 0.1 km to the next stop
5. Vilnius Cathedral: Lithuania's main Roman Catholic cathedral, rebuilt in neoclassical form by Laurynas Gucevičius, with a Baroque chapel for St Casimir and royal crypts beneath the floor, on Cathedral Square. 0.1 km to the next stop
6. Cathedral Square: The open heart of the Old Town at the foot of Gediminas Hill, framed by the neoclassical cathedral, its freestanding bell tower, and a statue of Grand Duke Gediminas. 0.7 km to the next stop

Afternoon

1. Gediminas Avenue: Vilnius's grand main boulevard, laid out in 1836 and running about 1.75 kilometres from Cathedral Square to the Neris river, lined with state institutions, theatres, shops and cafes. 0.4 km to the next stop
2. Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights: A museum in the former KGB headquarters on Gediminas Avenue documenting the Soviet and Nazi occupations, mass deportations and the post-war partisan resistance, with a preserved basement prison. 1.1 km to the next stop
3. MO Museum: A private museum of Lithuanian modern and contemporary art in an angular Daniel Libeskind building, opened in 2018 and conceived as a gateway between the Old and New towns. 0.7 km to the next stop
4. Halės Market: Vilnius's oldest working market, a covered iron-framed hall on the edge of the Old Town that opened in 1906 and still sells fresh meat, fish, produce and street food. 0.4 km to the next stop
5. Gate of Dawn: The only surviving gate of the vanished city wall, its upper chapel home to the venerated Madonna, Mother of Mercy, one of the region's great pilgrimage icons.

Day 2

Day 2 covers 10 stops over about 3.3 km as the crow flies, from St Casimir's Church to Church of St Peter and St Paul. ≈ 3.3 km between stops, straight line

Morning

1. St Casimir's Church: The oldest Baroque church in Vilnius, crowned by a distinctive cupola; once a Soviet Museum of Atheism, it was returned to worshippers in 1988 and reconsecrated in 1991. 0.1 km to the next stop
2. Town Hall Square: A broad square at the foot of Didzioji Street, dominated by Laurynas Gucevicius's neoclassical Town Hall, once the city's regulated marketplace and now its ceremonial heart. 0.6 km to the next stop
3. Presidential Palace: The official seat of Lithuania's president, a neoclassical palace on Daukanto Square that spent centuries as the bishops' residence and briefly housed Napoleon during his 1812 campaign. 0.1 km to the next stop
4. Vilnius University: Founded in 1579, the oldest university in Lithuania and the Baltic states, a labyrinth of about thirteen courtyards, white arcades and the Baroque Church of St Johns. 0.2 km to the next stop
5. Literatų Street: A short Old Town lane whose wall is covered with around two hundred handmade plaques honouring writers tied to Vilnius, in Lithuanian, Polish, Yiddish, Russian and other languages. 0.5 km to the next stop

Afternoon

1. Užupis: A bohemian district across the Vilnia river that jokingly declared itself a republic on April Fools' Day 1997, complete with a constitution, an angel and its own cheerful mythology. 0.4 km to the next stop
2. St Anne's Church: A leading example of Flamboyant Brick Gothic, built around 1500 from specially moulded red bricks; it stands beside the larger Bernardine Church as one Gothic ensemble. 0.1 km to the next stop
3. Bernardine Gardens: A riverside park below Gediminas Hill, where Bernardine monks once kept orchards and ponds; restored in 2013 with meadows, a rosary, a rock garden and a singing fountain. 0.3 km to the next stop
4. Three Crosses: Three white crosses on a hill above the Old Town: a 1916 monument demolished by the Soviets in 1950 and rebuilt in 1989, now a favourite viewpoint over Vilnius. 1 km to the next stop
5. Church of St Peter and St Paul: A masterpiece of Lithuanian Baroque in Antakalnis, its plain exterior hiding an interior crowded with some 2,000 white stucco figures, the work of Italian masters brought here by the founder.

Distances are straight-line between stops; streets add a little.

Where the route eats

Food and market stops on the Vilnius tour, each with its own story in the app:

• Halės Market: Vilnius's oldest working market, a covered iron-framed hall on the edge of the Old Town that opened in 1906 and still sells fresh meat, fish, produce and street food.

Updated: September 28, 2026

Full Vilnius guide and all stops →