Beyond Selidor

It was spectacular, and I'm so glad we were able to do it (although travelling those distances at that pace was really exhausting and I probably wouldn't recommend doing it that way unless you absolutely have to: Finland-Estonia, Estonia-Latvia, or Latvia-Lithuania (or indeed Poland and Lithuania) would probably have been more sensible, and allowed for a more relaxing pace and more time in each city).

There are certainly lingering traces of Vilnius's past as a centre of Jewish life, thought and culture — and perhaps if we'd stayed longer, we would have had a chance to explore this in more detail (if we'd had more time, this museum would definitely have been a place we'd have visited) — but I have to say I found the sense of presence and absence in this regard to be more unnerving than in any European city I've visited whose previously large Jewish community is no longer present. I don't know how to explain it, and maybe I'm being unfair since it wasn't really the focus of our trip and I wasn't specifically looking out for Jewish cultural and historical sites, but all I can say is that I felt this aspect of Vilnius's history should have been more prominent than it was, and the lack of prominence disturbed me.

But yes, in general, yay travel, and (with the above caveat; it's possibly worth getting the perspectives of Jewish people who visited Vilnius with a focus on its Jewish history at the centre of their visits) I definitely recommend all the places we visited.