Things to Do in Vilnius: 2026 Prices, Hours and the Walking Order

The Numbers

Every attraction, priced: the 2026 table

Operator figures, not aggregator figures — which is why several rows disagree with the listicles.

"Time needed" is our editorial estimate; the rest is the operator's figure. Ticket offices at Gediminas Castle Tower, the funicular and the Bastion shut 30 minutes early; the Palace admits its last visitors an hour before closing.

Where sources disagree, and who we followed

Three conflicts nobody else flags. The city tourism site lists the Cathedral Bell Tower as 10:00–18:00; the museum running it publishes 10:00–19:00, and we follow the operator. Aggregators print "daily 11:00–18:00 in summer" for St Anne's; the Vilnius Archdiocese gives Mon–Sat 17:15–19:00 and Sun 08:00–12:00. And guides still quote €2 for Gediminas Tower — that is the one-way funicular fare, not the €8 ticket.

The Route

The walking order that actually works

Competing lists rank by review count, which is useless on the ground. Gediminas Hill, Bernardinų sodas, the Three Crosses and Užupis are physically joined; most visitors do them as four separate trips.

1. Cathedral Square. The cathedral is free and open 07:00–19:00, so you can be inside before the bell tower opens at 10:00. The Stebuklas tile between them marks the Vilnius end of the Baltic Way.
2. The Palace of the Grand Dukes, on the same square, closed Mondays from September to May. On a winter Monday, swap in Užupis.
3. Up Gediminas Hill by funicular from the Old Arsenal courtyard, Arsenalo g. 3 (€3 return, €2 one way), or by the Trispalvė alley path, which suits neither wheelchairs nor prams. The audiovisual guides on the hill are free, in English, German, Ukrainian and Polish.
4. Down the far side into Bernardinų sodas, 7.8 ha of free park whose musical fountain runs every 15 minutes, 19:00–22:00 on weekdays and 12:00–21:00 at weekends.
5. The Three Crosses, uphill from the garden in Kalnų parkas: free, and the view everyone else pays for.
6. Over the Vilnia into Užupis for lunch. The 41 constitution articles are on mirrored plaques on Paupio street in more than 50 languages.
7. St Anne's Church, Maironio g. 8, whose brickwork uses 33 different shapes of clay brick, with the Bernardine church behind it.
8. Pilies gatvė into Literatų gatvė, where more than 200 plaques honour writers connected with Vilnius, a wall begun in 2009.
9. The university courtyards, free Mon–Sat 09:00–18:00. St Johns' bell tower is entered from Universiteto street through the Library courtyard.
10. Didžioji gatvė to the Gates of Dawn, free, and the only survivor of the ten gates in the city wall, first mentioned in 1514.
11. Halės turgus, Pylimo g. 58, if it is before 18:00 and not a Monday. MO Museum is at number 17.

Off the loop: the Museum of Occupations, the TV Tower and the National Gallery, each needing its own slot. If you would rather be led, Vilnius Free Walking Tours leave the Gediminas monument on Cathedral Square daily at 10:30 and 15:30, run 2–2.5 hours and are tip-based.

Costs Nothing

Free things worth doing, ranked

1. The Three Crosses — a 12 m monument by Antanas Vivulskis from 1916, demolished on Soviet orders in 1950 and rebuilt by Stanislovas Kuzma on the old foundations in the late 1980s.
2. Užupis, the smallest district at 0.6 km², independent since 1 April 1997. The constitution wall, the Angel, Destiny's Swing and the Mermaid are all free.
3. Bernardinų sodas: 7.8 ha, with a botanical collection linked to the botanist Stanisław Jundziłł.
4. The university courtyards — 13 of them, Observatorijos the oldest, in a university founded in 1579. Most visitors pay for the bell tower and never notice the courtyards are free.
5. The Money Museum, Totorių g. 2/8: free admission and free guided tours, and the free museum most Vilnius lists omit.
6. Vilnius Cathedral, with Laurynas Stuoka-Gucevičius's classicist facade and the tomb of St Casimir, and the Church of St Peter and St Paul at Antakalnio g. 1, with its 2,000-plus stucco figures by Pietro Perti and Giovanni Maria Galli.
7. The Gates of Dawn chapel and Literatų gatvė, at almost any hour.
8. Gediminas Hill. Pay the €8 only for the tower exhibition, whose third floor covers the Baltic Way, when close to 2 million people linked hands from Vilnius to Tallinn.

The free day nobody plans for: every National Museum of Lithuania branch, Gediminas Castle Tower included, is free for all visitors on the last Sunday of each month, no ID needed. See when to visit Lithuania if your dates can move.

Accessibility: the halls inside Gediminas Castle Tower have no wheelchair access, but the panorama plaza does — the lift in the Old Arsenal courtyard is free for visitors with reduced mobility.

Say It Plainly

What to skip in Vilnius

And Trakai is a day trip, not an afternoon add-on.

Bad Weather

Rain and winter: where to go indoors

The two longest dry stretches are the Palace of the Grand Dukes (€13, about 2.5 hours) and MO Museum (€11). The Museum of Occupations at €6 is indoors and underground; the National Gallery of Art is €6, or €8 with exhibitions.

For atmosphere over floor space, the Church Heritage Museum holds the cathedral treasury — 14th-century gold vessels set with pearls and gemstones, and the great monstrance of the Bernardine Church — for €10, and the booked crypt tour is €6–12. Combined tickets are sold at the bell tower office; we could not confirm that price at source, so ask there. The Money Museum is free and indoors, and Halės turgus is roofed, free and full of hot food.

The warning nobody prints: Gediminas Castle Hill has repeatedly suffered landslides and been closed at short notice after heavy rain. Check lnm.lt before building the climb into a wet morning.

Calendar

Closed days: the table that saves your itinerary

Vilnius has no single museum-closing day, which is why itineraries fall apart here.

A Monday means Gediminas Tower, the cathedral, Užupis, the parks and the churches; a Sunday means the towers are shut but the Palace and MO are open. Palace closure dates in 2026: 1 January, 5–6 April, 1 May, 3 May, 12 May, 1 November and 24–26 December. Check your dates against events in Lithuania.

Budget

What a day in Vilnius actually costs

The walking order above is entirely on foot; you need no transport ticket until the TV Tower or the National Gallery. When you do, a 60-minute single is €1.25, a 1-day ticket €7.50 and a 3-day ticket €13.50.

The pass maths falls out of those rows. Four paid attractions is €38, a euro under the 24-hour pass, and cramming in more than four means rushing the places that reward slowness. The 72-hour pass at €59 is the one that can genuinely pay.

See Vilnius airport transfer for arriving, transport in Lithuania for other cities and cheap flights to Lithuania for the flight.

Your Base

Where to base yourself so this route works

Sleep between Cathedral Square and the Gates of Dawn and every free item above is a short walk from the door, which takes the transport ticket out of your budget entirely. The walking order only holds together if you start inside the Old Town. Užupis is quieter and on the right side of the river for the Three Crosses.

Filter for something on or just off Pilies gatvė, Didžioji gatvė or Aušros Vartų gatvė, then price the same dates outside the walls — you can compare Old Town hotels between Cathedral Square and the Town Hall in one search. The where to stay in Vilnius page has the districts.

Affiliate disclosure: we may earn a commission if you book through partner links, at no extra cost to you.

How Long

One day, two days, three: what to cut

Two full days is the honest answer. One works if you accept that you are walking rather than museum-going.

For the escape, read the Trakai day trip guide, or the Kaunas travel guide for a second city instead of a castle. The Lithuania trip planner lays it against your dates.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions