Understand

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Climate
Transitional, between maritime and continental; wet, moderate winters and summers

Terrain
Lowland, many scattered small lakes, fertile soil. The fertile central plains are separated by hilly uplands that are ancient glacial deposits.
; Highest point : Juozapines mountain 292 m, about 30 km southeast of Vilnius lies just off the main highway to Minsk and within sight of the Belarus border.

History
Lithuania was a huge feudal country in middle ages, in 1569 entered an union with Poland to form a commonwealth.
Lithuania was part of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth until the Polish Partitions in the 18th. century when it became part of the Russian Empire.

; National holiday : Independence Day, 16 February (1918); note - 16 February 1918 is the date of independence from German, Austrian, Prussian, and Russian occupation, 11 March 1990 is the date of independence from the Soviet Union

Independent between the two World Wars, Lithuania was annexed by the USSR in 1940. On 11 March 1990, Lithuania became the first of the Soviet republics to declare its independence, but this proclamation was not generally recognized until September of 1991 (following the abortive coup in Moscow).

; Independence : 11 March 1990 (independence declared from Soviet Union); 6 September 1991 (Soviet Union recognizes Lithuania's independence)

; Constitution : adopted 25 October 1992

The last Russian troops withdrew in 1993. Lithuania subsequently has restructured its economy for eventual integration into Western European institutions.

Eat

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Lithuanian dinners usually include meat, potato and a curd sauce of some sort. Case in point: the cepelinai, or zeppelin, which is a meat or cheese-filled potato zeppelin slathered in dairy. Needless to say, vegans will have a hard time eating out.

Many restaurants have menus in English and Russian. Though use caution as sometimes menus in other languages may have inflated prices.

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