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Aukštieji Šančiai Cemetery
Holds the bodies of beloved Lithuanian pilots Steponas Darius and Stanislovas Girėnas who died on 15 July 1933, 650km short of completing the longest nonstop trans-Atlantic flight.
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Ceramics Museum
A small ceramics museum in the cellar of the 17th-century former town hall at Rotušės Aikštė.
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Choral Synagogue
Close to Laisvės alėja, a memorial at Kaunas' only operational Choral Synagogue remembers 1600 children killed at the Ninth Fort. The WWII Jewish ghetto was on the western bank of the Neris, in the area bounded by Jurbarko, Panerių and Demokratų streets.
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Christ's Resurrection Basilica
Above the top funicular station at the Green Hill Funicular towers Christ's Resurrection Basilica, a huge piece of history that took 70 years to build. A Nazi paper warehouse and radio factory under the Soviets, the church was finally consecrated in 2004.
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Communications Development Museum
The former post office contains the Communications Development Museum should old telephones be your thing.
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Field of Sacrifice
Field of Sacrifice - a name engraved on paving slabs in front of the garden is a tragic (2002) tribute to the young Kaunas hero, Kaunas student Romas Kalanta. On 14 May 1972 he doused himself in petrol and set fire to himself in protest at tyrannical Soviet communist rule. A suicide note was found in his diary explaining why.
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Folk Music & Instruments Museum
Near the former Presidential Palace of Lithuania, the Folk Music & Instruments Museum strikes a musical note.
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Green Hill Funicular
The Green Hill Funicular glides up Green Hill (Žaliakalnis).
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Holy Trinity Church
This late-Renaissance (1624-34), terracotta-roofed Holy Trinity Church fills the western side of Rotušės Aikštė.
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House of Perkūnas
Off the southeastern corner of Rotušės aikštė, the curious House of Perkūnas was built in red brick in the 16th century as trade offices on the site of a former temple to the Lithuanian thunder god, Perkūnas.
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IX Fortas (Ninth Fort)
Some of the darkest moments of Lithuania's brutal history occurred here. The Ninth Fort was built on Kaunas' northwestern outskirts in the late 19th century to fortify the western frontier of the tsarist empire. During WWII the Nazis made it a death camp where some 80,000 people were butchered. Later Stalin's henchmen used it as a prison and execution site.
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Kaunas Botanical Gardens
Gardening buffs will enjoy the Kaunas Botanical Gardens where university gardeners tend rare and wonderful plants in a 1920s manor-house garden.
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Kaunas Castle
A reconstructed tower, sections of wall, and part of a moat are all that remain of Kaunas Castle, around which the town originally grew. Founded in the 13th century, it was an important bastion of Lithuania's western borders.
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Kaunas Musical Theatre
Independent Lithuania's first parliament convened in 1920 at the Kaunas Musical Theatre, the former State Theatre Palace overlooking City Garden (Miestos Sodas) at the western end of Laisvės alėja since 1892.
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Kaunas Picture Gallery
Kaunas Picture Gallery houses a tribute to Jurgis Mačiūnas, the father of the avant-garde movement Fluxus.
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Kaunas Technological University
Unity Sq houses both Kaunas Technological University which has 14,000 students, and the smaller Vytautas Magnus University, refounded in 1989 by an émigré Lithuanian.
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Laisvės alėja
Kaunas expanded east from the Old Town in the 19th century, giving birth to the modern centre and its striking 1.7km pedestrian street, Laisvės alėja. Also known as Freedom Avenue, it was legendary for years as one of the few strips where smoking was banned - until 2000 when city mayor Vytautas Sustauskas butted in and permitted puffing again.
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Maironis Lithuanian Literary Museum
Maironis Lithuanian Literary Museum.
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Medicine & Pharmaceutical History Museum
The Medicine & Pharmaceutical History Museum is gruesome and fascinating.
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Military Museum of Vytautas the Great
The Military Museum of Vytautas the Great covers Lithuanian history from prehistoric times to the present day. Of particular interest is the wreckage of the aircraft in which Steponas Darius and Stasys Girėnas died while attempting to fly nonstop from New York to Kaunas in 1933.
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Museum of Deportation & Resistance
The Museum of Deportation & Resistance documents the spirit of Resistance encompassed by the partisan Forest Brothers, who fought against Soviet occupation. Led by Jonas Žemaitis-Vytautas (1909-54), 100,000 men went into Lithuania's forests to battle the tyrannical regime. One-third were killed, the rest captured and deported. Fighting continued until 1954 when the last partisan was shot.
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Museum of Devils
Diabolical is the collection of 2000-odd devil statuettes in the Museum of Devils, collected by landscape artist Antanas Žmuidzinavičius (1876-1966). Note the satanic figures of Hitler and Stalin, formed from tree roots, performing a deadly dance over Lithuania.
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Mykolas Žilinskas Art Gallery
The Mykolas Žilinskas Art Gallery boasts Lithuania's only Rubens. In the same square, Man, modelled on Nike the Greek god of victory, caused a storm of controversy when his glorious pose exposing his manhood was unveiled.
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National Čiurlionis Art Museum
The National Čiurlionis Art Museum is Kaunas' leading museum. It has extensive collections of the romantic paintings of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875-1911), one of Lithuania's greatest artists and composers, as well as Lithuanian folk art and 16th- to 20th-century European applied art.
