Vilnius's old town is Eastern Europe's largest, the UNESCO-protected area where Baroque churches appear at every turn and where narrow streets reveal centuries of construction. The old town that reflects Vilnius's complicated history - the Catholic churches, the Orthodox cathedral, the synagogue that survived, the communist-era absences.

The old town rewards wandering, the exploration that planning cannot improve upon. The old town is what makes Vilnius worth the journey, the atmosphere that larger capitals have lost.

The Baroque churches are what Vilnius displays most abundantly, the Counter-Reformation architecture that Catholic Poland-Lithuania built to demonstrate faith's triumph. The Church of St. Peter and St. Paul whose interior is Baroque's excess, the Vilnius Cathedral whose classical facade belies Baroque interior - the churches are what Vilnius has more of than seems possible.

The churches represent the era when Vilnius was capital of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the power that built what tourism now visits. The churches are history made architectural.

Vilnius was Jerusalem of Lithuania, the city where Jewish scholarship flourished for centuries before the Holocaust destroyed 95% of the community in two years. The Vilna Gaon whose learning made the city famous, the ghetto where Nazis confined the community, the forest of Paneriai where they murdered over 70,000 - the Jewish history is what Vilnius must reckon with.

The Jewish history is absence that presence cannot replace, the community that shaped Vilnius and that genocide erased. The history requires acknowledgment even as tourism emphasizes Baroque beauty.

Uzupis is the neighborhood that declared itself independent as April Fools' joke that became identity, the artistic quarter whose constitution guarantees every cat the right to be a cat and everyone the right to be happy. The bohemian neighborhood that gentrification has found, the creativity that independence enabled.

Uzupis represents post-Soviet Vilnius, the playfulness that freedom permits, the neighborhood that artists claimed before galleries came. Uzupis is what Vilnius's quirky charm includes.

Gediminas Tower is Vilnius's symbol, the remaining fragment of the Upper Castle where Lithuanian rulers governed and where the flag that symbolized independence flew even under Soviet rule. The tower that provides the views that every visitor seeks, the symbol that represents Lithuania's continuous existence.

The tower connects present to medieval past, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania that was once Europe's largest state. The tower is Lithuania's monument to its own history.