Last week's Sunday Story blog was about our arrival for a slow adventure in Lithuania.
We arrived on a cold Thursday, but day two in Kaunas arrived with a completely different energy. The sun was out, the city was buzzing, and Lithuania was celebrating a long public holiday weekend leading up to Mother’s Day.
After the cold, quiet streets of yesterday, it felt like someone had turned the brightness up a few notches.
The only challenge? Dressing for it. Scorching in the sun, freezing in the shade. A constant battle between jackets and sunglasses. I'm being so British here starting with the weather, you'd think I'd be used to all the seasons on one day!
But a bit of sun makes a world of difference.
☕ A Slow Start (With Strong Coffee)
We woke refreshed, and wandered to the square in front of the cathedral, where we’d spotted a café the day before for breakfast. Strong coffee, sweet pastries, and a perfect view of the world waking up. As we sat munching, stallholders were setting up outside. A few tables, we thought. A small market, perhaps.
We were wrong.
🎪 A Market That Goes On Forever
What we thought was a handful of stalls turned out to be a four‑kilometre festival of colour, craft, and creativity, stretching the entire length of the promenade, on both sides.
It was a slow‑living, Hen's Tooth vibes, dream. A treasure hunter’s paradise.
Ceramics. Woodwork. Weaving. Linen. Cosmetics. Clothes. Street food. Smoked meat and fish. Baked good. Amber jewellery. Music stages. Open‑air bars. A patchwork of culture and craft every few metres.
We spent the whole day dawdling up and down, soaking in the atmosphere, stopping for smoothies, people‑watching over lunch on the sunny side of the street, and letting the city show us what it had to offer.
🎶 Folk Songs, Junk Bands & Baltic Joy
At the main stage, traditional folk singers in national costume performed dances and songs from bygone eras. Rich reminders of Lithuania’s deep cultural roots and its pride in preserving them.
Further along, a band played on instruments made from scrap:
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a guitar fashioned from a steel box
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a drum made from a water tank
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a microphone built from an old rotary phone receiver
It was joyful, inventive, and utterly captivating. I love creativity that makes you smile without realising it.
🛍️ The First Finds of the Trip
As we wandered, my sourcing brain switched on. I needed to be discerning.
The items I was sourcing had to be unusual, beautiful, and small enough to survive a suitcase journey home. And they had to be priced sensibly enough to sell back in the UK.
Lithuania isn’t as low‑cost as we expected; prices are closer to France than Bristol, but still fair for handmade craft. I'm proud of how restrained I was in the face of such gorgeousness.
I was in full magpie mode!
✨ Lithuanian Kitchen Linens
A little shop of beautifully made linen tea towels and oven mitts caught my eye. I started seeing art printed on linen everywhere, later discovering that Lithuania is renowned for it's fine quality linens. SO Hen’s Tooth, I stocked up immediately.
You can find those beautiful, large, durable, thickly absorbent and effortlessly chic tea towels in the Love Lithuania Mini Edit.
✨ Hemp Bags & Backpacks
In a wonderfully eclectic shop, I found colourful hemp bags. They are bold, tactile, and practical. I’d already bought the Wanderlust hemp backpack as my hand luggage for the trip, and it had been perfect. So these were a must.
There was only one of each, so that is all that is available in the store. If you love it, get it while you can, it won't hang around for long!
✨ Lava Glaze Ceramics
Ceramics were everywhere. I easily could have filled an entire suitcase with beautiful hand-thrown pottery. But one stall stopped me in my tracks: small dishes in a shimmering black‑green glaze that looked like beetle wings. Later I learned the technique is called lava glaze, something I’d never seen before.
I chose a couple of small pieces and got chatting to the stall holders; a father and son with their own pottery studio practicing a technique passed down through generations.
I wanted so many more of the amazing pots from this stall, but just bought a few small pieces, mindful of their delicate nature and the space in my suitcase. I must look them up and see about the possibility of doing a deal with them to supply more in the future.
Find the pieces I bought in the collections.
🌱 A Glimpse of What’s Possible
By the time we wandered back to our apartment, sun‑tired and happy, I knew this day would shape the whole trip.
Kaunas had revealed its colour, its culture, and its creativity.
Reflecting back on my vision, during this little excursion to the Baltics, something in me shifted.
Finding those first beautiful pieces for Hen’s Tooth has been something of a quiet confirmation, a revelation even, that I’m on the right path.
I'm hearing a little whisper of yes, keep going.
It made me hopeful for the bigger vision I’ve been carrying around: to travel more, to wander slowly through new places, and to bring home treasures that tell stories far beyond our borders.
This trip was meant to be a test. It has been a gentle experiment in sourcing overseas.
When we laid our finds out on the apartment table, I could already see the future taking shape.
The Love Lithuania Mini Edit doesn’t feel like a one‑off anymore. It feels like the first chapter of something much bigger.
We’re already poring over maps, bookmarking places, and dreaming up where Hen’s Tooth might wander next. Imagine:
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small‑batch ceramics from Portugal
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quirky brocante finds in France
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folk‑art treasures from Central Europe
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slow‑made pieces discovered in tucked‑away markets and tiny workshops
A shop shaped not just by products, but by places. By people. By stories gathered on the road.
If Lithuania is the beginning, then I hope it’s the first of many slow adventures and tales for the Hen’s Tooth world.