It's surreal, standing outside Bristol Airport at 4 a.m. in April. It's the kind of cold that bites your fingertips, gets in your bones, and makes you question every life choice that led you to be awake at this hour.
By 4:15, the terminal is bright, loud, and heaving. Apparently, we heard a Customs Office say, 'this is the busiest time of the day'.
It's an assault on the senses before the adventure has even begun.
Shuffling along the snaking line designed to slow down the throng of people funneling through security. As ever, the wire in my bra sets off the alarm and I'm already poised for the inevitable pat down.
The plane is cold. When we step off at the other side, the air in Kaunas is cold. But when we get into our apartment it's the first time we've been warm all day.
It's a fresh, modern mezzanine tucked beside the cathedral, and astonishingly good value at under £100 a night. We drop our bags and breathe.
⚠️ A Wake‑Up Call We Didn’t Expect
Our taxi ride from the airport is calm enough. Graham is scrolling for the apartment details when suddenly every phone in the car lights up with an emergency alert. People on the street pause, break their stride, all glancing down in eerie unison.
The taxi driver doesn’t flinch.
“It’s just a test,” he says, in excellent English. “The government does them regularly… because of Russia.”
He says it casually, like someone mentioning the weather. Lithuania borders Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. This is a geographical reality that shapes daily life far more than we in the UK ever have to consider.
And then it happens: An air‑raid siren echoes across the city.
A sound I’ve only ever heard in films or in the stories our grandparents told. It lasts just seconds, but that's long enough to make you question your perception of reality.
“You don’t have these tests in the UK?” he asks.
No. Nothing like this. A COVID alert on our phones once, maybe.
It’s a reminder of the bubble we live in. The UK’s tendency to imagine itself somehow immune, somehow exceptional.
Lithuania doesn’t have that luxury.
🚶 Wandering Into Kaunas
Once we’ve settled in with a terrible instant coffee from the apartment cupboard, we do what we always do: we walk.
Comfy daps laced tight. Fleece zipped up against the bitter Baltic wind. Curiosity switched on.
Our apartment sits just steps from Kaunas Cathedral Basilica, the largest Gothic church in Lithuania, marking the head of a long pedestrian promenade lined with cafés, bars, and shops.
On this cold Thursday morning, the city is quiet. A few students marching along, heads bowed into their phones, earphones sealing them off from the world.
I’ve never understood the constant‑headphones thing. Even in Bristol, which feels familiar and safe, I like to have all my senses open. To see, hear, smell, and map a place in the invisible 3D that gives everywhere its character.
Engaging all my senses in the moment makes me feel alive.
Kaunas reveals itself slowly. The main thoroughfare is tiled and modern, but the side streets shift into cobbles; some large and rounded, others small and tightly set in dusty mortar. I feel every wobble underfoot through my flexible daps, it forces you to slow down, look up, look around.
The architecture is a patchwork:
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Art Deco façades
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Soviet‑era blocks
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Splashes of street art
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Faded pastel churches
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Terracotta rooftops
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Medieval brickwork
Kaunas Castle (a 14th‑century Gothic fortress) sits at the confluence where the Nemunas and Neris rivers meet. One of Lithuania's oldest masonry castles, it's a reminder of the nation's long history of defending its borders.
These stones and bricks have centuries of stories to tell.
Spring arrives later this far north. The trees are only just budding, tiny acid‑green leaves against dark bark. Tulips are just beginning to bloom, they are long finished back home.
We walk far more than our 10,000 steps, as the city unfolds at its own pace.
🍺 A Warm Lunch in a Cold City
Eventually, we duck into a cosy bistro for a cold beer and a warm lunch.
We feel… slightly underwhelmed.
Kaunas doesn’t shout. It doesn’t perform. It doesn’t try to impress you.
But scratch the surface of the 2022 European Capital of Culture, and you realise it’s a city of layers. There is a quiet, understated, sense of resilience, creativity, and a proud identity shaped by history, hardship, and hope.
It’s a place that rewards the slow traveller.
And that’s exactly why we’re here.
✨ A Slow Start in Kaunas
As we wandered through old streets, browsed cute little shops, and let ourselves be pulled into cafés by the rich smell of coffee, finding murals and weird art around every corner, I appreciated the simplicity to Lithuanian design and craft that instantly resonates with me: honest materials, earthy tones, and a deep respect for tradition.
It was the next day, however, when the sun came out and the biggest market I had ever seen was in full swing, that I started spotting treasures for the shop.
More on that in the 'Sunday Stories' blog next week...
What Comes Next
This is just the beginning of our Baltic adventure. The first steps of a journey that will take us from Kaunas to Vilnius, through markets, forests, castles, and unexpected moments of joy and reflection.
It’s also the beginning of the Love Lithuania Mini Edit, a collection shaped by the colours, textures, and stories we found along the way.