Ask my college age nephew and he’ll tell you that the only thing he does when he goes to his campus bookstore is to get books and other study materials he needs for his courses. It’s an in and out kind of place. You don’t linger inside and you most certainly don’t stare up at the ceiling. Literra Bookstore, located on the grounds of Vilnius University, will change your mind on both fronts! The bookstore is small by U.S. standards. With its dark wood interior, low lighting and painted, vaulted ceiling, it looks and feels like an intimate library of a luxury European estate and not a campus bookstore. The ceiling is low and fully decorated so your eyes cannot help but be drawn to the frescoes of caricatures of professors and students painted by Antanas Kmieliauskas in 1978. It is a work of art unto itself. If you’re looking for English books, there’s not much of a selection, but the store does sell decent souvenirs including pressed paper postcards, suitable for framing, by Metalo Forma (http://www.metaloforma.lt/), a renowned Lithuanian art print maker. It costs five litas to enter the campus, which is located in the heart of Old Town Vilnius. In addition to Littera Bookstore, there are enough sights to see to make the cost of admission worthwhile.
