CAPITAL VILNIUS - POPULATION 3.6 MILLION - AREA 65,200 SQ KM -OFFICIAL LANGUAGE LITHUANIAN
It's an important year for Lithuania, with the European Capital of Culture baton being passed to Vilnius in 2009. It means the city will be dripping in festivities (including Street Musician Day in May and an Art in Unusual Places project) but it also means the rest of the country's tourism industry – transport links, hotels – has been beefing up for the occasion. It's hoped visitor numbers will grow by 20%. The Baltic coast is tipped to be the next big thing: Palanga is where locals like to spend their summers, but head further south to the wooden-house villages of the Curonian Spit, a skinny finger of shifting sand and the highest drifting dunes in Europe.
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