Churches

For the end of our stroll we walked around the few churches around the town hall area and there are plenty of them. They dominate the architecture everywhere. Despite the communists' attempts to suppress religion and even repurpose some buildings as store houses there has clearly been a resurgence and most have been renovated to a very high standard. Even the less well kept have great character. You just wonder how many city so small can support so many. And when you consider in 1940 forty percent of Vilnius's population were Jewish how different must it have looked back then. But after the Poles, Soviets, Nazis and finally the Lithuanians themselves had their way, nothing of Jewish origin remains, apart from the sign of the old Jew Street which does now have its original name but I do wonder if that was the case in 1941.