Vilnius
— red brick gothic above a quiet river.
Not only on a wall.
“The capital of Lithuania, set where the small Vilnia meets the Neris and the old town climbs in baroque and brick toward Gediminas Hill. Vilnius University has held the same courtyards since 1579. South of the Cathedral, past the Gates of Dawn, the Užupis quarter holds its own constitution on a bronze plaque. The light, in the long northern summer, stays late.
Vilnius, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Vilnius is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, set in the southeast of the country where the Vilnia river joins the Neris. The population is around 580,000. The city was founded in 1323, when Grand Duke Gediminas issued letters from a wooden fortress on the hill that now carries his tower. Vilnius University, founded in 1579, is the oldest university in the Baltic states. The Old Town, at 360 hectares, is the largest surviving medieval old town in Northern Europe and was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1994.
Vilnius is sometimes called the Rome of the North for the density of its baroque churches. The Church of St. Anne, completed in 1500, is a Gothic landmark of red brick said to have impressed Napoleon enough that he wanted to carry it to Paris. The Vilnius Cathedral, in its current Neoclassical form, was rebuilt by Laurynas Gucevičius between 1779 and 1801 on a site holding a pagan temple and earlier churches. The Gates of Dawn, completed in 1522, are the last surviving city gate of the original nine and shelter a venerated 17th-century icon of the Virgin.
Vilnius sits at 54.7 degrees north, the same latitude as the southern tip of Alaska. The summer light is long: in late June, civil twilight lingers past 11 p.m. and the river holds a pale sky until almost midnight. Winter runs the other way, with sunset before 4 p.m. in late December and the snow on the baroque facades reading bluer than white in the low afternoon. Spring comes late; the linden trees in the Bernardine Gardens leaf out in the first week of May, and the city opens its cafés onto the lanes.