LITHUANIA

It’s a bold claim but Vilnius is right up there with the best cities we’ve visited in Europe - even if we did make a pig’s ear of the first day of our trip in October 2025. And by that we mean that we quite literally ate the Lithuanian delicacy of pig’s ear. The verdict? It’s very not for us!

After exploring the Old Town and the Republic of Užupis, we attended our first football match in the country - a second-tier encounter between the reserves of Žalgiris Vilnius and FK Minija, which was a rather underwhelming affair it must be said.

The next game on our agenda was at TransINVEST, a club which has long fascinated us - partly because they won the cup as a second-tier team and qualified for Europe, and partly because they are owned and run by a logistics company.

When we wrote to the club to let them know we would be coming, they asked us which hotel we were staying in and even came to pick us up. What a welcome! We then travelled to the brand-new TransINVEST Stadium in the village of Galinė and enjoyed their game against the Šiauliai reserves, which they lost 2-1.

A big thank-you to the club for their wonderful welcome. We will definitely come again if we are in town!