Stairs provide exercise and good views

Stairs to a view in Vilnius

Poor John loves going up stairs and hills. If there’s a tower, we have to climb it. If there’s a hill, we have to see what’s at the top. And don’t get me started on mountains. In Canberra, he’s up and out the door by 5:30 most mornings to climb Mt Pleasant and Mt Russell (both are just big hills).

So I wasn’t even a tiny bit surprised when he suggested that we visit the Bell Tower at the Vilnius Cathedral in Lithuania. Don’t tell him, but I wanted to go up it too.

At a height of 52 metres (add five more for the cross), it’s one of the oldest and tallest towers in old Vilnius. It’s also a fantastic opportunity to see sweeping panoramas of the city, an exhibition of old bells, and the city’s oldest surviving clock mechanism.

View of the main square from the bell tower

So who cares if it has almost 300 steps and doesn’t have a seniors’ admission price!

The tower, which was started in the 13th century, stands in Vilnius’s main square and several metres away from the cathedral. This placement is apparently unusual outside Italy.

Many scholars believe the tower was part of the city’s ancient walls and the medieval Lower Castle that once stood near the modern square.

In the early 1600s, the tower was converted and became the cathedral’s belfry.

Stone stairs

Timber stairs

View

Like most ancient structures, it has had its problems. Much of the wooden parts were damaged by fire in 1610, and the main bell (which took 12 men to play) was destroyed.

The current clock was installed in 1672. It is the oldest and most important clock in Vilnius. There is no record of who made the clock’s mechanism, but it is thought to have come from Germany.

The last major repairs were in 1803—that date is incised on the frame—by Juozapas Bergmanas, the elder of the Vilnius clock makers’ guild.

The bell tower is several metres away from the cathedral to the right

The clock has only one hand. Its obtuse end is decorated with a crescent, and the pointed end shows the hours. Bells help to count the time more precisely. They strike the hours, half hours and quarters with chimes. We were in the bell tower long enough to hear them three times. You should have seen one gal jump when the hour was hit.

There are recordings to listen to throughout the tower. One told us of Gustav Mörk, who cast the main bell in 1754. Apparently he added one of his wife’s hairs to every bell he made, which he claimed gave them a sweeter sound.

Clock mechanism

Main bell

I read that the other bells of the clock differ in proportion (they have a much larger diameter in relation to their height), and their strikes are less resonant, which supposedly makes it easier to count them. These bells, which range in weight from 675 to 1600 kilograms, are named Saint Casimir (the heaviest), Saint Anne (the lightest) and Saint Stanislaus.

My favourite view from the tower was back over the cathedral and to the hills beyond.

Oh, and I counted the steps up and down, but have now forgotten how many there were. Close to 300 with differing kinds of staircases, from stone to timber.

My favourite view from the Vilnius Bell Tower