Things to do in Central Lithuania
-
Zokniai Military Airfield
In Soviet times this airfield with two 3.5km-long and 45m-wide runways - large enough to land a space shuttle - was the USSR's biggest military base outside Russia, used to defend its western border. The last of its 55,000 troops based here left in 1993, and since 2004 the Lithuanian air base has been used by NATO forces to patrol Baltic skies.
Guided tours take you around the airfield, built in 1935 and much of it in a shocking state of crumbling disrepair after 10 years of abandonment. Many of the 50 or so Soviet aircraft hangars once housing MiG-29 fighters remain, as do the subterranean command post, sturdy enough to survive nuclear attack, and the fuel reserves, a lu…
reviewed
-
Hill of Crosses
This 'Mecca of Lithuania' - thousands upon thousands of crosses on a hillock - has inspired countless pilgrimages.
Large and tiny, expensive and cheap, wood and metal, the crosses are devotional, to accompany prayers, or finely carved folk-art masterpieces. Others are memorials, tagged with flowers, a photograph or other mementoes in memory of the deceased, and inscribed with a sweet or sacred message. Traditional Lithuanian koplytstulpis (wooden sculptures of a figure topped with a little roof) intersperse the crosses, as do magnificent sculptures of the Sorrowful Christ (Rūpintojėlis). Should you wish to add your own, souvenir traders in the car park sell crosses big an…
reviewed
-
Pažaislis Monastery
This fine example of 17th-century baroque architecture is 9km east of the centre, near the shores of Kaunas Sea (Kauno marios), a large artificial lake created by damming the Nemunas.
The monastery church with its 50m-high cupola and sumptuous Venetian interior made from pink and black Polish marble is a sumptuous if shabby affair. Passing from Catholic to Orthodox to Catholic control, the monastery has a chequered history and was a psychiatric hospital for part of the Soviet era. Nuns inhabit it today. The best time to visit is between June and August during the Pažaislis Music Festival (www.pazaislis.lt). Take trolleybus 5, 9 or 12 to the terminus on Masiulio gatvė, a f…
reviewed
-
A
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.
One of the most desperate anti-Soviet actions was the suicide of Kaunas student Romas Kalanta. On 14 May 1972 he doused himself in petrol and set fire to himself in protest at tyrannical communist rule. A suicide note was found in his diary explaining why.
reviewed
-
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.
Two days after the duo set off from New York, 25,000 people gathered at Kaunas airport for their triumphant return. They never arrived. Their orange plane Lituanica crashed in Germany; see the wreckage in the Military Museum of Vytautas the Great. After being embalmed, then hidden during Soviet occupation, the bodies came to rest here at in 1964.
reviewed
-
Monastery
An alternative view of the Hill of Crosses is from inside the chapel of the modern brick Monastery. Home to 10 Franciscan monks, it was built behind the hill between 1997 and 2000 - allegedly upon the wishes of John Paul II who said he wished to see a place of prayer following after his visit in 1993.
Behind the altar in the church, the striking backdrop through the ceiling-to-floor window of the Hill of Crosses in place of a traditional crucifix is breathtaking; Italian architect Angelo Polesello designed it.
reviewed
-
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.
The museum has exhibits on the Nazi horrors against Jews, and also includes material on Soviet atrocities against Lithuanians.
reviewed
-
B
Sugihara House
Kaunas-based Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara (1900-86) saved 12,000 Jewish lives between 1939 and 1940, issuing transit visas to stranded Polish Jews who faced being forced into Soviet citizenship. When the Soviets annexed Lithuania and ordered all consulates be shut he asked for a short extension. Dubbed 'Japan's Schindler', he disobeyed orders for 29 days by signing 300 visas per day, and handed the stamp to a Jewish refugee when he left. Sugihara House tells his life story.
reviewed
-
SS Peter & Paul's Cathedral
SS Peter & Paul's Cathedral, overlooking Priskėlimo aikštė, was constructed between 1595 and 1625 from the proceeds of the sale of four-year-old bulls donated by local farmers. It has a 75m spire - Lithuania's second highest - and legend says the hillock it stands on was created from sand and dust which blew over a dead ox that wandered into Šiauliai, sat down and died.
reviewed
-
C
Presidential Palace of Lithuania
The former Presidential Palace is where the country was run between 1920 and 1939. Restored to its original grandeur, the palace hosts a fascinating exhibition on independent interwar Lithuania. B&W photographs are interspersed with gifts for past presidents, silver collections and presidential awards. Statues of former presidents dot the palace garden.
reviewed
Advertisement
-
D
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.
reviewed
-
E
Statue of Maironis
In the square's southwestern corner is a statue of Maironis (1862-1932), a Kaunas priest called Jonas Mačiulis who was the poet behind Lithuania's late-19th- and early-20th-century nationalist revival. Stalin banned his works. From 1910 to 1932 Maironis lived in the house behind now what is the Maironis Lithuanian Literary Museum.
reviewed
-
F
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.
reviewed
-
G
Miesto Sodas
Trendy Miesto Sodas has a cool club, Siena in its basement and a varied menu. Sip on fresh carrot or beetroot juice and pick from wok-fried BBQ spare ribs, a T-bone steak, cold berry soup or a typically Lithuanian herring filet in the company of marinated red onions, sour cream and baked potatoes. Service can be snail-slow.
reviewed
-
Sundial
A distinctive city landmark is the mammoth Sundial, topped by a bronze statue of an archer in what has become known as 'Sundial Square'. It was built in 1986 to commemorate the 750th anniversary of the Battle of Saulė (1236), the battle in which local Samogitians defeated the Knights of the Sword and founded the town.
reviewed
-
H
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.
reviewed
-
Bicycle Museum
Bone-jolting wood and iron bicycles without tyres stand next to orange and pink communal bikes introduced by Vilnius City Municipality in the late 1990s (they were stolen within days) and mean speed machines made by Lithuania's biggest bicycle manufacturer, Šiauliai-based Balti Vairas (Black Panther).
reviewed
-
I
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.
Trolleybus 7 from the bus or train stations terminates at the castle site.
reviewed
-
J
St Peter & St Paul's Cathedral
St Peter & St Paul's Cathedral with its single tower owes much to baroque reconstruction, especially inside, but the original 15th-century Gothic shape of its windows remains. It was probably founded by Vytautas around 1410 and now has nine altars. The tomb of Maironis stands outside the south wall.
reviewed
-
Arkos
This eating-drinking joint in a brick cellar caters to all. Whether you want a simple beer with deep-fried garlic bread sticks, a teatime pancake or dinner, you'll be sure of a tasty time. Service can be slow but the detailed scenes of rural Lithuania painted on the walls provide distraction.
reviewed
Advertisement
-
K
Žaliakalnio funikulierius (Green Hill funicular)
As its name suggests, the Green Hill funicular glides up Green Hill. Above the top station 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.
reviewed
-
L
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.
reviewed
-
M
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.
reviewed
-
N
St Michael the Archangel Church
The Soviets turned the blue neo-Byzantine St Michael the Archangel Church, filling the skyline at the eastern end of Laisvės alėja, into a stained-glass museum. Built for the Russian Orthodox faith in 1895, the church was reopened to Catholic worshippers in 1991.
reviewed
-
O
St Gertrude Church
A gothic gem of a church is tucked in a courtyard off Laisvės alėja: St Gertrude Church was built in the late 15th century. Its red-brick crypt overflows with burning candles, prompting a separate candle shrine to be set up in a shed opposite the crypt entrance.
reviewed
