Something about Old Vilnius I have not mentioned in my review. About places and authors.
I do believe every ancient city and most of old small towns are as fabulous as Old Vilnius, each in a different way, most probably, but still... The problem is, the people living there are used to their local wonders, and therefore do not find them all that special. A wonderful place needs a stranger to come and see how wonderful it is and help everybody, including old-timers, see that too. That, precisely, happened to Old Vilnius: Светлана Мартынчик (Макс Фрай) came, and saw, and fell in love with the old rather shabby city and wrote the wonderful Tales... What it needed was a Ukrainian writer writing in Russian living in Lithuania. Old Vilnius is lucky to have her!
Other old cities and towns (let alone villages, which, mostly, have been destroyed by now, anyway) are not so lucky, alas...