During my November ’18 trip to Vilnius in Lithuania, it seemed a great idea to fit in a little trip to a town nearby, enabling me to experience a bit more of what the country had to offer during my time there. With it only being a small capital city, it is quite easy to explore the bare bones of the city in a fairly short space of time, allowing time to branch out a little. I chose Trakai due to it being close to Vilnius and easy enough to get to via public transport.
Depending on how much you want to see whilst you are there, it is a perfect place to choose as a day trip. It is very easy to get a bus to Trakai from Vilnius bus station as they depart quite frequently and take about 45 minutes each way. The fare is very cheap at 1.80 EUR each making it a very affordable day trip indeed! There is a also a train that goes to Trakai – around one every hour – that would be worth trying also but it is just as easy to get the bus.
Just a quick note here; there is a really beautiful graveyard just a little before you start the lake side walk to Trakai Castle. It is right next to the train station or you can alight the bus at the penultimate stop before the bus station. I missed the stop but saw it as we whizzed past and it looks well worth checking out if you are so inclined. I, for one, love looking around and photographing epic graveyards – they are sombre places but oh so beautiful with the different structures and arrangements of the headstones – many coated in ivy with magnificent views of surrounding places to behold and the beady eyes of the crows.
To reach Trakai castle and town centre, you can either go from the train station or the bus station. I alighted at the bus station and simply walked ahead to where the entrance to lakeside walk was and from there, walked and walked until I reached the castle on the lake. This is a very popular place to visit during the Spring and Summer and many Lithuanians do so.
However, with it being -4 degrees that mid-November day, as you can imagine, barely a leaf had been unturned and the still lake was preparing for it’s icy glaze. Trees loomed over me, stark and bare – branches naked and akimbo. Abandoned boats teetered on the edges of the lake, eagerly waiting for the gathering of warm flesh and the satisfying clinking of beer bottles.
Trakai Lake Walk
The walk along the lake – in any weather I imagine – is lovely. I did some research online about Trakai the day before and it said that the best times to go were in Spring, Summer and early Autumn but that it is not recommended once all the trees are bare in late November. Well, this is when I went and still really enjoyed it so it’s a matter of personal opinion I think – I can imagine it being stunning though with all the new formed Autumn leaves, protecting the trees’ modesty.
Sometimes it is fun to just go outside the box with a trip no matter what is the supposed best time to go. You can really make it your own that way.
Along the lake walk, you pass a church (naturally, in this very religious country) that you can walk up to to have a look in and then circuit back around to arrive back where you were so you can’t get lost. It was a lovely church offering a pretty garden area with carved wooden and bronze religious statues and evergreen trees.
Just five minutes on from the church I came upon some ruins I wasn’t expecting to see and for a minute I thought this was the castle! I was sure that it wasn’t though from the research I had done but was quite certain that this was the ruins of another castle due to it having the clear castle walls and a courtyard area in the middle. I had a little amble around these ruins and then continued on in search of the famous castle on the lake.
It is about a half an hour walk along the lake before you see the castle in all its glory, it’s a very cool building and you need to walk along a bridge to get to it. You come to a cute little souvenir shop selling those oh-so-familiar little Lithuanian woollen hats in a variety of quirky designs. After such a stark and desolate winter lake walk, it was very welcomed to arrive at the heart of Trakai where beings other than shivering birds were.
Trakai Castle
The castle is very prominent; in terracotta orange with conical roofs tipped with proud flags flying in the breeze. It is very well maintained and the long bridge walk towards it is fun and you can just imagine enemies being accosted there during historical battles. It is the only Island Castle in Eastern Europe so understandably a special treasure to the Lithuanian people. You can pay to enter the castle and have a look around but I decided not to do this due to an increasing desire to visit one of the cute looking restaurants I had seen just before the bridge. For me, just the experience of walking up to this castle, marvelling at and photographing it was enough but it is a personal choice of course.
The Karaim People
I visited a restaurant called Kybynlar which was perfect for learning all about the Karaim people that inhabit Trakai and trying some of their lovely Middle Eastern cuisine. The Karaims came from an old Turkish tribe and were brought to Lithuania during the late 1300’s by the Great duke where they settled and have been there ever since. This created a fusion of Lithuanian and Karaim culture in Trakai which makes it unique! The Karaim language, though rare, is still spoken in and around Trakai and they gather in a unique type of Synagogue called Kenesa of which only a handful still remain, one of which is in Trakai.
Karaim Cuisine in Trakai
Their cuisine is very traditional and centred around meat and spices cooked in pastry, stews and soups but of course, what restaurant in Lithuania would be complete without the addition of fish, sour cream and potatoes? I enjoyed meat-filled grape leaves and fish fried in grape leaves with rice and salad. Honestly, grape-leave stuffed things are so good! The sharp, fruity taste goes excellently with meats, vegetables and an array of seasonings.
And just when it seemed this restaurant couldn’t get any better…!
This was the most friendly, jolly cat I had ever had the pleasure of meeting. He was a lovely ginger tom and was apparently called ‘Cheese’ in my language and ‘sūris’ in Lithuanian – how adorable! He was rubbing around my legs, jumping up on my knee and having cuddles and he didn’t seem a bit phased. He was innocently sniffing at food on the table, clearly hopeful he would be offered a taste but he was by no means crossing the line and getting naughty or greedy, he was amazing and could have taught my two cheekies a thing or two! The staff here were also very friendly and were telling me that this cat does not even belong to them, he apparently belonged to another restaurant owner further along but often came in to see them to charm all the guests!
Once finished at the restaurant, I decided to see what we could of the town, which would not be much as it would be soon getting dark. From what I saw, it was lovely; traditional wooden houses, local shops and a prominent town statue but most memorably, this…
Artisan Chocolate Cafe and Museum
A chocoholic’s heaven hidden in the little town of Trakai! Now, this is one of the reasons I love travelling so much, when you stumble across something you had no idea was there or would not have expected to be there, I get a real buzz from it! This place was awesome and I hadn’t had dessert at the restaurant so this was the perfect excuse to pop in for a quick hot chocolate to warm my cockles up on such a cold day!
The interior of this artisan chocolate cafe – ‘Sokoladas’ it was called – was beautifully arranged. Chocolates of all kinds on little trays in clean glass displays with white, dark and milk chocolates in jars and glass vases. Candelabras on the vintage papered walls, festive gift bags and chocolate gift boxes of all shapes and sizes on the wall behind and bottles of luxurious wines and champagnes that no doubt, pair perfectly with these chocolates. It really was a heavenly sight.
I ordered a hot chocolate that was rich, intense and delicious and as I sat and savoured my indulgent treat, I realised that there was more than met the eye with this place. For one, there was a life-sized model of a tiger in what appeared to be an entrance way for a museum. A chocolate museum?! It cost a couple of euros but I HAD to know what was behind that curtain!! Something macabre no doubt! Whilst sat, some very dramatic music could be heard filtering through and with the aromatic scent of chocolate in the air, it was a delightful sensory overload.
Once the hot chocolate was suitably devoured and the cream moustache wiped from my mouth, I paid to go into the museum. It was just a small corridor leading to a single room so it was very small overall and a fleeting experience but I found it lots of fun as it was spontaneous and I just love museums in general – especially surprise ones! The corridor shared some of the history of the cocoa bean using displays and models; where the cocoa bean was first discovered, farmed and the early trade industry – basically the birth of chocolate.
This corridor led to, basically, lots of sculptures that looked like they were made from chocolate or something that gave a similar effect. These models were very clever and lots of fun, depicting aristocratic ladies and gentlemen in a range of chocolate-fuelled scenarios.
I enjoyed the short but literally sweet experience and departed soon after back out into the cold night air with a chocolate-heated belly.
My day in Trakai was coming to a close and I contentedly made my way to the bus station, shortly arriving back into Vilnius.
I would definitely recommend a day in Trakai, the Island Castle is really worth seeing and the Karaim culture to be found there is really interesting, plus it is a chocoholics heaven – who knew? It is cheap to get to by public transport and easy to explore in a day so is perfect to go to if you’re staying in Vilnius or another city in Lithuania, whatever the season!
I hope you get to find yourself there one day and I would love to know what you think. Let me know in the comments below if you have been!
