Beauty of the Baltics: With its opera, exotic cakes and love for Churchill, Lithuanian Vilnius is a delight

Thank goodness for a -5 degree Celsius winter day. The frost and snow not only highlight the ethereal beauty of Vilnius' winding streets, its pale, painted 18th and 19th century buildings and skyline of beautiful domes and spires, but also give a hint of its dark history.

Just a few decades ago, someone living here, who might have done nothing more than mumble a complaint about the authorities, would be woken at three in the morning by a sinister knock on the door.

Pushed into a car with blacked-out windows, they were taken out and locked in one of the small, icy cells that visitors can now see into at the Occupation Museum, the former headquarters of the Soviet Union's KGB.

Then they might have been tortured, sent to a Siberian labor camp, or simply disappeared forever.

Like the other two Baltic states, Latvia and Estonia, Lithuania spent almost 45 years, from the end of World War II until the collapse of communism in 1990, in the brutal grip of the Soviet Union.

It's a grim recent history that helps explain the unapologetic patriotism and embrace of war heroes you continually encounter.

As I shake the snow off my boots and carefully walk down the stairs to Dom Bow Ties, a small shop under one of the streets in the old town, I find myself in a fairytale world that is unexpectedly dominated by a photo of Winston Churchill.

Old wooden planks decorate the bare brick walls of the former cellar.

There are hundreds of different bow ties, priced from €18: plain, patterned, linen, silk, brocade. Churchill looks down from an angle.

“My grandfather lived through the Second World War and he loved Churchill,” says the owner, Paulius.

In the beautiful National Opera and Ballet Theater, where a last-minute stall costs just €25, I talk to a young music student.

Adriaane shakes the snow off her boots and navigates the streets of the old town, pictured

“Russia is a neighboring country, and we know what that neighboring country is capable of,” says. 'My father was one of the defenders who stood outside our parliament in 1991 when the Russian tanks came out.

My father says that if they come again, everyone in Vilnius will do what we have to do. Go to our Occupation Museum and you will understand.'

Pushing open the heavy front door (which now emphatically bears a Ukrainian flag) using the brass handle that so many must have touched, I pay my entrance fee (about £5) and step into a meticulously documented world of horror.

The Jewish population of Vilnius suffered the most. By the end of World War II, more than 95 percent had been murdered.

At night, gripping €20 prison tours, led by torch, take place in the old Lukiskes prison, built in 1904 and now part art center with an outdoor igloo sauna.

Harrowing €20 prison tours take place at the old Lukiskes prison (pictured), built in 1904, and now part arts center with an outdoor igloo sauna, says Adriaane

It's a relief to then take a dip in one of Vilnius's countless warm, cheerful cafes.

On the corner of Stikliai Street, in the old town, a restaurant whose exterior is decorated with giant candy canes prompting every other passerby to stop and take a photo, has the best cakes.

The cheapest is Suliniai, the only remaining café from the Soviet era, with Formica tables and a cabbage and pork smell.

'English!' says the unsmiling woman in the blue overalls behind the counter, as she finally delivers my 50p cup of tea, after initially denying that she had any tea in stock at all.

Her tea is almost as cheap as the 80 cent bus ticket from Vilnius airport to the city center.

From spring 2024 – when Lithuania celebrates its 20th anniversary as a member of the EU and NATO – Ryanair will operate flights to Lithuania from a further 15 cities across Europe.

That almost guarantees that tourists will flow in, that prices will rise and that hotels will be such nice ones Relais & Chateaux Stikliai may not remain the great bargain they are today.