Vilnius Free Walking Tours - Tour Guide in Vilnius

Violet was a brilliant guide! Very informative, not too much walking but very interesting! She made it personal and became more like a friend than a guide! 10/10 would recommend

This tour was extremely special. Unlike other options in Vilnius, it takes you to unexpected stories and parts of the capital, such as Šnipiškės, with its 300 19th-century wooden houses, swallowed up by the 21st-century glass and steel skyscrapers. In stark contrast to Žvėrynas, a wealthy neighbourhood that grew up around settlements of noble families, Šnipiškės remains a place where ‘ordinary’ or generally low-income families live. Most of these houses are still heated by wood-burning stoves, and many do not even have running water or sewerage: residents use public drinking fountains, and it is not uncommon to see outdoor toilets. Some streets are still unpaved (such as Šilutė and Saracėnai streets) and are surrounded by private gardens with fruit trees, lilacs and lime trees, maintaining a much slower pace of life than the rest of the capital. Some residents still keep pigeons, which are used in the game of ‘furima’. And an invisible line separates, by just a few metres, what some call an anachronism and others consider a heritage to be preserved at all costs: if you stretch out your hand, you almost feel as though you could touch the skyscrapers of Europe Square. Šnipiškės is obviously a tempting prospect for large construction firms: over the years, there have been numerous stories and investigations into arson attacks allegedly carried out to justify the decision to demolish the wooden houses and make way for glass and concrete. What will become of this part of Vilnius in the future? Will it shrink ever further until it is eventually swallowed up entirely by increasingly ambitious skyscrapers? Or will it survive by fighting back? I really hope that this tour will continue, because it tells stories that you wouldn't find out about otherwise. And thumbs up to Violetta: she was incredibly clear in her stories, kind, and at times funny. Well done! Highly recommended!