Established in 1579 and one of the oldest universities in Eastern Europe, the splendid ensemble that makes up Vilnius University’s main campus buildings embraces just about every major architectural style of the last 400 years. Originally belonging to the Catholic Church, the University became a secular seat of learning in 1773 and has remained so ever since. Closed for much of the 19th and the first 18 years of the 20th century, famous past students who’ve studied here include the Polish Romantic poets Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki, the Lithuanian author and historian Simonas Daukantas (see him on any 100Lt note) and the Lithuania-born Polish Nobel Prize-winning author Czesław Miłosz. As well as housing the oldest library in the country, Vilnius University is also famed for its lovely courtyards, of which depending on your definition of what a courtyard is, there are either 12 or 13. The University itself claims 13, although by rights the correct number should be 12 as one of them only has three walls, the fourth having been destroyed during construction work on the neighbouring Presidential Palace. The ensemble was fully restored in 1979 and is well worth investigating. A map can be found at Universiteto 7 explaining where everything is.