Panevėžys is Lithuania's fifth-largest city, a quiet provincial centre of about 85,000 in the flat Aukštaitija farmlands of the north, roughly halfway between Vilnius and Riga on the Via Baltica. It is not a place most travellers will make a detour for — the historic core is small and the 20th century dealt harshly with its old synagogues and interwar buildings — but it is one of Lithuania's major cultural towns, home to the Juozas Miltinis Drama Theatre, one of the most famous stage companies in the country, and a surprisingly rich scene of public murals and street art across the centre.
If you do stop, the pedestrianised Laisvės Square and the neo-Gothic Christ the King Cathedral make a pleasant half-hour walk, and the Upytė Ethnographic Museum a short drive west is worth an hour for a glimpse of traditional Aukštaitijan farm life.