Stikliai Hotel

Stikliai has been the traditional face of Vilnius luxury since the early 1990s, when a cluster of sixteenth-and-seventeenth-century buildings in the old glassmakers' quarter—Stiklių street still carries the trade's name—was knitted into the city's first true luxury hotel. A long-standing Relais & Châteaux member, it has hosted the visiting-dignitary circuit for three decades, and it holds to a classical register: antiques, tapestries, fresh flowers and staff who practice an old-school, unhurried courtesy.

Rooms and suites are individually decorated with period furniture and rich fabrics; some keep beams and nooks from the original structures, and the quiet cobbled lanes outside ensure restful nights. A small pool and sauna downstairs—unusual for the old town—add practical comfort.

The restaurant serves classical French-leaning cooking in a chandeliered dining room, with a cosier tavern annex for Lithuanian dishes. The location is superb: the lanes around Stiklių street are the old town's most atmospheric, with Cathedral Square and the Gates of Dawn each ten minutes' walk. Where PACAI is contemporary Vilnius, Stikliai is its silk-upholstered memory—and many guests would not trade it.