On a clear summer evening, you can watch a hot air balloon drift silently over Vilnius Old Town — something almost no other European capital allows above its historic center, for reasons of noise, airspace and simple bureaucratic caution. Vilnius does, and it says something about how comfortable this city is with being looked at from above. You don't need a balloon to get a great view of it, though. Between one hill, one tower and one repurposed Soviet landmark, Vilnius hands out panoramas almost carelessly.
Gediminas Tower and Castle Hill
The classic view starts at Gediminas Tower, the red-brick remnant of a hilltop castle first built in wood between 1216 and 1264 and rebuilt in brick in the early 1400s under Grand Duke Vytautas. What stands today was reconstructed in 1933, and its observation deck is still the most efficient panorama in the city: Cathedral Square directly below, the Old Town's red roofs and church towers spreading out from it, and the Neris River curling past the newer high-rises on the opposite bank. You can walk up via a path from Trispalvė alley, or take the funicular from the courtyard of the Old Arsenal — a short, slightly touristy ride, but a fair trade for skipping the climb in summer heat.
The Three Crosses
Across the valley, on what old maps called Bleak Hill, three white crosses mark a viewpoint with its own tangled history. Wooden crosses were first raised here between 1613 and 1636 by Franciscan friars, tied to a legend of monks martyred on the site — a story historians can't actually confirm, though it's told often enough that most locals repeat it as fact. A more solid brick monument replaced them early in the 20th century, only for Soviet authorities to dynamite it in the 1950s specifically because it dominated the skyline as a religious symbol. It stayed empty until 1989, when Lithuania rebuilt it as independence approached. The terrace at its base is open all day, free, and frames Gediminas Tower, St. Anne's Church and the Palace of the Grand Dukes in a single sightline — arguably the single best composition of the Old Town you'll find anywhere.
The Vilnius TV Tower
For something taller and more sobering, the Vilnius TV Tower stands 326.4 meters high, with a rotating café and observation deck around the 165-meter mark that turns a full circle roughly every 45 minutes. Completed in 1980, it's a purely Soviet-era structure, but it carries weight beyond the view: on the night of January 13, 1991, Soviet troops stormed the tower to shut down independent broadcasting, and fourteen unarmed civilians died defending it. A small museum on the ground floor documents that night, and markers around the base name those who were killed. The panorama from the top, looking back at the Old Town from a distance rather than above it, hits differently once you know what happened at the bottom of the tower you're standing in.
St. John's Bell Tower
Less famous than Gediminas Tower but arguably more rewarding is the belfry of St. John's Church, inside the Vilnius University complex — at 68 meters, the tallest structure in the Old Town itself. You reach the observation deck by 193 wooden stairs or a lift, passing the only working Foucault pendulum in the Baltic states on the way, and the payoff is a 360-degree view that puts you level with the spires you'd otherwise be looking up at: St. Anne's, Gediminas Tower, and the rooftops of Pilies gatvė laid out underneath. It's closed over winter, from late October to April, which makes it one of the few views on this list you genuinely have to time your trip around.
Balloons and rooftop bars
If you'd rather not climb anything, Vilnius obliges there too. Hot-air balloon flights over the Old Town run seasonally, drifting above the rooftops before landing in a meadow outside the city — a genuinely unusual privilege among European capitals, most of which restrict ballooning near dense historic centers entirely. Closer to ground level, rooftop bars like Skybar at the Radisson Blu Hotel Lietuva offer a more casual version of the same idea: a drink in hand, the Old Town spread out below, no funicular ticket required.
None of these views compete so much as complete each other. Gediminas Tower gives you the postcard shot; the Three Crosses gives you the postcard shot of the postcard shot; the TV Tower gives you distance and a hard dose of recent history. See at least two, and Vilnius stops being a map in your head and starts being a place you can actually picture.
About the author
Greta Vilčiauskaitė
I'm a Vilnius-born travel writer and food enthusiast. I've spent a decade mapping the capital's courtyards, markets, and trailheads — and I still discover something new every week.