A week off school in mid-February, usually with snow still on the ground. Tuesday of the break is February 16, Statehood Restoration Day, a public holiday with flags out across the city. We mixed snowy plans with warm indoor ones for the days it's too cold to stay out long. Here's what we checked, from the slopes at Liepkalnis to LEGO trains at the Brick Museum.
Liepkalnis is the city's largest winter sports center: 10 slopes (2.6 km in all) from one green beginner run up to a black, and 10 lifts. Small children learn on a beginner slope with a magic carpet lift, and the ski school starts skiers at 3 to 4 and snowboarders at 6.
Snow cannons open the slopes once it freezes, and the snow park has 20 to 30 features.
A small cross-country ski area on an open field between Perkūnkiemio and Leičių streets, laid out as three linked routes: the 200 m Leičių Path through the middle, the 500 m REWO Loop around the edge, and the 1,000 m Perkūnas Trail joining them into one circuit.
Kids trying skis for the first time can stay on the short path while older ones lap the full kilometer.
An ice rink on the ground floor of the Akropolis mall, open all year for public skating in timed sessions. Cafes ring the rink, so parents can sit and watch, and the ice also hosts figure skating shows and hockey games.
New skaters can skate with a penguin aid to hold on to, and protective pads are lent free. Kids can join figure skating and hockey training.
Pramogų Arena is a covered ice rink that runs public skating sessions through the day, alongside ice hockey academies, figure skating classes and curling. Kids skate laps on open ice, rental skates come from the staff at the rink, and anyone unsure on skates can ask staff for pointers. The Ledo Kavinė café sits on site for a warm drink afterward.
A Polynesian-themed aqua park spread over several floors. There are nine slides, from family boat rides on the Ohana river to the 60 km/h Moreja volcano, plus the Dolphins' sea wave pool with waves up to 1.5 m and the 137 m Canoe river for floating on rings.
Smaller children get the Game island, eight platforms of tunnels and slides where they control the water jets, watched by lifeguards.
The museum fills the city's first public power plant. Downstairs are its original steam boilers, turbines and control panel. The 1,000 m² Transformation Hall puts the two largest Tesla coils in the Baltics inside a Faraday cage, and challenges at each exhibit earn points to swap for souvenirs.
The two top floors hold an interactive science zone with a Jacob's ladder, a Möbius strip and a Bernoulli ball.
The national railway museum fills part of the second floor of Vilnius station, with almost 900 exhibits on how Lithuania's trains run: passenger travel, track maintenance and signaling.
Outside, the Rail Park (Bėgių parkas) spreads 12 exhibits over 7,100 square meters: locomotives, wagons, a water steam pump and a wagon heating boiler. It suits train-mad kids who want to see the real thing up close.
Vilnius Auto Museum fills a former taxi depot with over 100 historic cars and motorcycles from 10 countries. Exhibits run from the first cars of the late 1800s through interwar Lithuania and World War II vehicles to race cars and cars that carried Lithuanian presidents.
Younger kids can try a Ford Model T and hunt for secret doors in cars, and a children's area has toy cars, coloring and books.
The first museum in Lithuania devoted to LEGO, built from a private collection of more than 2,000 modern sets. Themed zones cover LEGO City, a medieval village, pirates and Vikings, the Wild West, Minecraft, dinosaurs and space, plus a giant minifigure wall.
Exhibits are look-only, but the construction wall lets kids build and add to a shared piece. Trains and lights run on a short program every hour.
360 Arena is a 7,900 m² indoor hall of trampolines and interactive sports games. Older kids get acrobatic trampolines, an airbag, a ninja course, a volcano, an air track for gymnastics and light-up challenge games such as ValoJump and iWall.
Younger kids have separate junior and toddler zones, including four smaller trampolines inside the play structure. Eleven themed party rooms and the 360 Food restaurant are on site.
Montis Magia Pikas is a full-service climbing gym run by the Montis Magia climbing club, with about 1,187 square meters of wall. Tall rope walls take up most of the hall, and a separate bouldering area has lower walls climbed without a rope.
Training boards cover stronger climbers. The club also runs a climbing school whose instructors teach rope technique and mountain skills.
Zoopark is the city's only indoor zoo, home to nearly 90 species from around the world, inside the Ogmios miestas complex. Kids can watch ring-tailed lemurs, meerkats, marmosets, tamarins, flying squirrels, tortoises, geckos and pythons up close.
Visitors can feed the rabbits, guinea pigs, koi and parrots, and keepers feed the meerkats, lemurs and monkeys several times a day.
The residence of Lithuania's grand dukes, gone from the mid-1600s and rebuilt this century, is now a national museum. Four routes run through it: surviving castle walls and archaeological finds, furnished Renaissance and Baroque state rooms, weapons and palace kitchen displays, and temporary exhibitions.
The state rooms route climbs an observation tower with views over the city. Outside are a Renaissance garden and bas-reliefs.
The Old Arsenal holds the National Museum of Lithuania's archaeology collection, a 12,000-year walk from the first people after the ice melted to the Baltic tribes of the Iron Age.
The ground floor has Stone Age tools and weapons and replicas of seven key finds. Upstairs covers the 1st to 13th centuries: farming, metalwork, weapons and ceramics.
A week off school in mid-February, usually with snow still on the ground. Tuesday of the break is February 16, Statehood Restoration Day, a public holiday with flags out across the city. We mixed snowy plans with warm indoor ones for the days it's too cold to stay out long. Here's what we checked, from the slopes at Liepkalnis to LEGO trains at the Brick Museum.
Liepkalnis is the city's largest winter sports center: 10 slopes (2.6 km in all) from one green beginner run up to a black, and 10 lifts. Small children learn on a beginner slope with a magic carpet lift, and the ski school starts skiers at 3 to 4 and snowboarders at 6.
Snow cannons open the slopes once it freezes, and the snow park has 20 to 30 features.
A small cross-country ski area on an open field between Perkūnkiemio and Leičių streets, laid out as three linked routes: the 200 m Leičių Path through the middle, the 500 m REWO Loop around the edge, and the 1,000 m Perkūnas Trail joining them into one circuit.
Kids trying skis for the first time can stay on the short path while older ones lap the full kilometer.
An ice rink on the ground floor of the Akropolis mall, open all year for public skating in timed sessions. Cafes ring the rink, so parents can sit and watch, and the ice also hosts figure skating shows and hockey games.
New skaters can skate with a penguin aid to hold on to, and protective pads are lent free. Kids can join figure skating and hockey training.
Pramogų Arena is a covered ice rink that runs public skating sessions through the day, alongside ice hockey academies, figure skating classes and curling. Kids skate laps on open ice, rental skates come from the staff at the rink, and anyone unsure on skates can ask staff for pointers. The Ledo Kavinė café sits on site for a warm drink afterward.
A Polynesian-themed aqua park spread over several floors. There are nine slides, from family boat rides on the Ohana river to the 60 km/h Moreja volcano, plus the Dolphins' sea wave pool with waves up to 1.5 m and the 137 m Canoe river for floating on rings.
Smaller children get the Game island, eight platforms of tunnels and slides where they control the water jets, watched by lifeguards.
The museum fills the city's first public power plant. Downstairs are its original steam boilers, turbines and control panel. The 1,000 m² Transformation Hall puts the two largest Tesla coils in the Baltics inside a Faraday cage, and challenges at each exhibit earn points to swap for souvenirs.
The two top floors hold an interactive science zone with a Jacob's ladder, a Möbius strip and a Bernoulli ball.
The national railway museum fills part of the second floor of Vilnius station, with almost 900 exhibits on how Lithuania's trains run: passenger travel, track maintenance and signaling.
Outside, the Rail Park (Bėgių parkas) spreads 12 exhibits over 7,100 square meters: locomotives, wagons, a water steam pump and a wagon heating boiler. It suits train-mad kids who want to see the real thing up close.
Vilnius Auto Museum fills a former taxi depot with over 100 historic cars and motorcycles from 10 countries. Exhibits run from the first cars of the late 1800s through interwar Lithuania and World War II vehicles to race cars and cars that carried Lithuanian presidents.
Younger kids can try a Ford Model T and hunt for secret doors in cars, and a children's area has toy cars, coloring and books.
The first museum in Lithuania devoted to LEGO, built from a private collection of more than 2,000 modern sets. Themed zones cover LEGO City, a medieval village, pirates and Vikings, the Wild West, Minecraft, dinosaurs and space, plus a giant minifigure wall.
Exhibits are look-only, but the construction wall lets kids build and add to a shared piece. Trains and lights run on a short program every hour.
360 Arena is a 7,900 m² indoor hall of trampolines and interactive sports games. Older kids get acrobatic trampolines, an airbag, a ninja course, a volcano, an air track for gymnastics and light-up challenge games such as ValoJump and iWall.
Younger kids have separate junior and toddler zones, including four smaller trampolines inside the play structure. Eleven themed party rooms and the 360 Food restaurant are on site.
Montis Magia Pikas is a full-service climbing gym run by the Montis Magia climbing club, with about 1,187 square meters of wall. Tall rope walls take up most of the hall, and a separate bouldering area has lower walls climbed without a rope.
Training boards cover stronger climbers. The club also runs a climbing school whose instructors teach rope technique and mountain skills.
Zoopark is the city's only indoor zoo, home to nearly 90 species from around the world, inside the Ogmios miestas complex. Kids can watch ring-tailed lemurs, meerkats, marmosets, tamarins, flying squirrels, tortoises, geckos and pythons up close.
Visitors can feed the rabbits, guinea pigs, koi and parrots, and keepers feed the meerkats, lemurs and monkeys several times a day.
The residence of Lithuania's grand dukes, gone from the mid-1600s and rebuilt this century, is now a national museum. Four routes run through it: surviving castle walls and archaeological finds, furnished Renaissance and Baroque state rooms, weapons and palace kitchen displays, and temporary exhibitions.
The state rooms route climbs an observation tower with views over the city. Outside are a Renaissance garden and bas-reliefs.
The Old Arsenal holds the National Museum of Lithuania's archaeology collection, a 12,000-year walk from the first people after the ice melted to the Baltic tribes of the Iron Age.
The ground floor has Stone Age tools and weapons and replicas of seven key finds. Upstairs covers the 1st to 13th centuries: farming, metalwork, weapons and ceramics.
