Wizz Air

The underrated ‘Capital of Christmas’ has everything you could want for a festive break but there’s also plenty more than just Christmas – including Stranger Things locations

Nestled in the south of Lithuania, Vilnius, the second largest city in the Baltic states, is a place where Christmas is celebrated with gusto.

Every nook and cranny of the city sparkles with festive lights, baubles, gifts, and all sorts of decorations you can imagine. The streets are festooned with Christmas trees, buskers strumming carols on their guitars, and everyone indulging in warm wine, soaking up the holiday cheer.

The city has earned the title ‘Capital of Christmas’, and it’s not hard to see why – they pull out all the stops when it comes to decking the halls.

I had the pleasure of visiting this enchanting city and was swept away by the festive euphoria. There’s a magical aura that permeates the city, making the spirit of Christmas palpable.

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As I wandered around, snowflakes gently falling, fairy lights twinkling, and shop fronts adorned with such stunning decorations that you can’t help but stop for a closer look.

A short flight from London City airport (with return fares starting at £33) transported me within hours to this vibrant and mystical Baltic city, steeped in rich history and home to over 50 churches, subterranean spas, numerous museums, and an arts quarter. It’s also gained fame as a filming location for Netflix’s hit series Stranger Things, with parts of season four shot here, including scenes in a now-defunct 100 year old prison.

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Vilnius is famed for the architectural splendour of its Old Town, one of Europe’s largest and best-preserved historical centres, earning it a UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 1994. This heritage-rich area also hosts the city’s iconic Christmas market.

The European Parliament’s Christmas Cities Network crowned Vilnius as the Capital of Christmas, largely due to its internationally acclaimed Christmas trees. The Vilnius Christmas tree has topped the European Best Destinations list two years running.

For me, it was the picture-perfect Christmas markets that drew me to this city. The main Christmas market is nestled in the enchanting Cathedral Square, within the old town, and is renowned for its stunning, award-winning Christmas tree – a genuine 205-square-metre installation standing 20 metres tall.

The market is brimming with quaint wooden stalls offering sweet delicacies, mulled wine, and festive crafts.

You can enjoy a warming mulled wine or a hot chocolate for €7 each, but if you return your mug, you’ll receive a €2 refund, making these festive beverages a bargain at just €5 (roughly £4.60).

If all that wandering about works up an appetite for some authentic Lithuanian fare, you can sample regional specialities from the vendors, including traditional “kaladinis” chimney cakes, sweet curd doughnuts and plenty of pudding-style treats such as confectionery, gingerbread, doughnuts, hot chocolate and naturally mulled wine. The vendors also offer numerous handcrafted goods and locally-made products created specially for Christmas.

Adorned with fairy lights scattered throughout the market and featuring an enormous sparkling tree, the principal Christmas market is genuinely spectacular, but in typical Vilnius fashion, one market simply won’t suffice and the city plays host to ten different ones across the area. Once you’ve finished browsing the stalls, be sure to explore the stunning Jewish quarter within the Old Town district.

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Alternatively, if you’re seeking somewhere for supper, you might venture to Lokys, the city’s most established family-operated restaurant, which serves vibrant pink chilled beetroot soup with potatoes, alongside beaver casserole – genuine regional specialities of the area.

The Christmas market launched on 29th November and will remain in the square until 6th January, whilst you can discover the additional markets at the railway station, Hale Market and a rather unconventional market in Lukiški prison (yes, genuinely!).

The city adores Christmas so thoroughly that the national bank even introduced Vilnius’ own Christmas currency, enabling you to purchase goods from the Christmas markets using the festive tender which was revealed as red pine cones. Another yuletide attraction in the square is the two-storey Christmas carousel.

Standing at a towering 10 metres high, it’s been crafted by Italian artisans in a traditional style. Other jolly features to keep an eye out for in Vilnius include the ice rink in Town Hall Square and the Christmas train that whisks visitors on a 20-minute journey through the twinkling streets of Old Town Vilnius for a mere €1.80.

Book the trip

LOT Polish Airlines provides direct flights to Vilnius from London City airport. Ryanair and Wizz Air also offer non-stop flights from the UK.

Rooms at the Hotel Pacai start from €176 a night (approximately £153).

For more information about Vilnius, visit govilnius.lt.

The new route will take nearly eight hours in total, but passengers will have none of the extras usually associated with long-haul flights, such as meals or entertainment screens to pass the time

Flying on a budget airline is always a bit of an endurance test. They’re usually pretty cramped and offer little in the way of service or extras. But if the flight is a couple of hours long, most people aren’t bothered about luxurious extras if it means they’ve got more money in their pocket to enjoy the destination once they land.

However, in recent years, budget airlines have been offering longer routes, meaning that even long-haul destinations can be reached on one of these minimalistic services. One of the latest offerings comes from Air Arabia, who in spring 2026 will be offering a new London Gatwick to Sharjah route. It comes in at a leg-cramp-inducing seven hours and 50 minutes.

According to the Telegraph, these flights, which are operated on a single-aisle plane, will clock in as the world’s longest budget airline flights. However, they will offer an inexpensive way to visit the Middle East, and Sharjah Airport is just half an hour from Dubai, which will no doubt make it a popular route. According to Skyscanner, the cheapest tickets available now from London to Sharjah is £182. It remains seen how much cheaper the new route will be.

On-board, Air Arabia doesn’t look much different to easyJet, Jet2, or Ryanair. Cabins will have a single aisle with three seats on each side. Some services will have options to upgrade to extra legroom, and you can choose Basic, Value, or Ultimate packages when you book with the latter two, including checked baggage, either a sandwich or a hot meal, and water.

You won’t get seatback TVs to help you pass the time, but you can download an app called SkyTime, which allows you to access TV shows, movies, sports, and other entertainment on your personal device. Otherwise, your view for eight hours will be the seat in front of you and the in-flight magazine.

However, if you’re hoping to enjoy a cold beer or gin and tonic en route to your holiday destination, you’ll be disappointed. Air Arabia is a dry airline, so the trolley will only be stocked with soft drinks. It’s worth noting that Sharjah is a dry emirate too. While non-Muslims can drink in their homes, no alcohol is served in hotels or restaurants.

If you can make it through the flight, you have the option of staying in Sharjah, or heading to nearby Dubai for your stay. Sharjah isn’t as well-known as its neighbouring city, but it’s the third-largest emirate in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

UNESCO named Sharjah the “Cultural Capital of the Arab World”, and it hosts the Islamic Civilization Museum, which has thousands of items from coins to calligraphy and Islamic artefacts set in a beautiful domed building.

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Sharjah also boasts long sandy beaches that overlook the Persian Gulf, and the Al Majaz Waterfront area is particularly popular with tourists, as this large complex features picturesque parkland, Western chain restaurants, and stunning views of the skyscrapers that comprise Sharjah’s skyline.

There’s also plenty to do for families, including the colourful Sharjah Aquarium and Sharjah Classic Cars Museum, where you can see shiny vehicles from the earliest days of automobiles through to modern cars.

Have a story you want to share? Email us at webtravel@reachplc.com

An investigation by consumer group Which? has raised questions about how available the cheapest claimed cabin bag fees advertising by budget airlines are in reality

Advertising watchdogs are investigating claims about easyJet’s cabin bag fees.

The budget airline says passengers can take a bag on board from just £5.99 each way. But researchers from consumer group Which? were unable to find the price when they searched 520 easyJet options. The cheapest it found was £23.49, and the average £30 – about five times more expensive than the lowest price claimed. And as the cabin bag fees are one way, for most passengers the cost would be doubled when returning home from their trip.

The finding prompted Which? to lodge a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority, and it is now being investigated.

A spokesperson for easyJet said: “EasyJet’s bag options and pricing is transparent and well understood by our customers, allows them to pay for only what they want and no more and enables us to keep fares low for everyone. This year 100 million passengers are choosing to fly with us and with our customer satisfaction scores up year on year, it’s clear that customers continue to value the choices that we offer.”

Which? also looked for Ryanair’s claimed lowest cabin bag price of £12 each way, and says it only found it available twice out of 634 flights – or just 0.3% of the time. The average fee for Ryanair was £20.50, it says.

It was a similar story for Wizz Air’s 15 euro claim, that Which? found was available just twice on the 338 flights checked.

Rory Boland, Editor of Which? Travel, said: “Our research shows that the tens of millions of passengers who need to take a cabin bag will pay much more than the cheapest price advertised – rather than a few pounds, prices for bags can often be more than the flight itself. “The tactics used by these airlines deserve to be called out, that’s why we have shared our findings with the regulator.”

Ryanair hit back strongly to the claims against it, branding the Which? research “total rubbish”. A spokesperson said: “Ryanair operates over 100,000 flights each month or over 1.2million flights annually so your ‘survey’ of just 600 flights is statistically too small to be representative or accurate.”

A Wizz Air spokesperson said: “Wizz Air flies over 75 million passengers each year, so a sample of 350 flights isn’t representative of cabin bag pricing across our full network. “Given the small sample and the fact we’ve had no visibility of the data, we believe it is potentially misleading.”