Built on the former site of an early fifteenth century wooden church, it took around five years to construct the Church of St Anne, which was completed at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It was built for Anna, Grand Duchess of Lithuania, wife to Vytautas the Great, and was consecrated in 1500.
Most of the structure remains true to its original architecture, although some changes were made in the mid-late sixteenth century and renovations have been carried out over the years, including in 2009. Most notably original is the stunning façade, which remains unchanged since its reconstruction in the 1400s.
The church is a prominent example of Flamboyant Gothic and Brick Gothic styles, and is considered to be one of the most interesting examples of Gothic architecture in Lithuania. The distinctive red hue of the Church of St Anne can be attributed to the thirty-three types of clay brick used to construct it.
According to legend, the church is so striking that Napoleon Bonaparte spotted the church during the Franco-Russian war of 1812 and subsequently wished to carry the church home to Paris ‘in the palm of his hand.’
Today, The Church of St Anne is grouped with the neighbouring Saints Francis and Bernardine Church, with tourist routes going through both. Much of the area’s history is still visible within the fabric of the building’s architecture: for instance, at the beginning of the 16th century the church was incorporated into the construction of Vilnius defensive wall, so you can see shooting openings in its walls.
Tours are available in English, Lithuanian and Russian, and there is a regular programme of worship.
From the centre of Vilnius, The Church of St Anne is reachable in around 15 minutes by foot via the Gedimino pr. road. By car, it takes around 7 minutes via Tilto g. road.
]]>
Named after the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Gediminas, who first built fortifications on this site in the 14th century, the remaining Gediminas Tower actually dates back to the 15th century when the Upper Castle was reconstructed.
Today, Gediminas Tower is open to the public as part of the Vilnius Castle Museum. Inside it houses models of what the castle once looked like and it has an observation deck from which you can get great views of the city’s UNESCO-listed historic quarter.
The first wooden fortifications at the site of Gediminas Tower were built by Gediminas himself, the Grand Duke of Lithuania. According to legend, Gediminas was hunting in the woods of the Šventaragis Velley and brought down a bull on a hilltop. That night, the duke dreamt of a wolf made of iron, and his magician said the dream meant Gediminas should built a great city in the spot, which would later become Vilnius.
The tower’s stone successor was completed in 1409 by Grand Duke Vytautas and was an imposing defensive structure overlooking the Neris River. Another pair of castles were built following Gediminas Tower: the Lower and the Crooked, which was burned down by the Teutonic Knights in 1390, never to be rebuilt. The Teutonic Order continued to attack Vilnius’ castles, yet were only able to capture the tower in 1655 during the Battle of Vilnius.
Following the battles, the damaged castles lost their importance and were abandoned.
Today, the Gediminas Tower remains as an important symbol of not only the city of Vilnius but of Lithuanian nationality. On 1 January each year, the tricolour Lithuanian flag is hoisted to the top of Gediminas Tower to commemorate Flag Day. From the tower’s viewing platform, visitors also get a fantastic panorama of the city.
Open 10am to 5pm, the tower houses a museum (opened in 1960) displaying many findings from the hill and its surrounding areas. Particularly interesting are several models of the Vilnius Castles between the 14th and 17th centuries, alongside armaments and iconographic material of the Old Vilnius.
You can reach the hilltop either on foot or by lift.
Located in the city’s old centre near Vilnius Cathedral, you can reach Gediminas Tower by trolleybuses 2, 4, 10, 17 or buses 10 and 33, all stopping around the park where the castle stands. For those driving, there is parking across the Vilnia River, a 9 minute walk over the bridge and past the Old Arsenal.
]]>The 7 rooms of the museum tell the story of the once flourishing Jewish community in Lithuania (known as the ‘Litvak’ community) from the times of the grand duchy of Lithuania, until their persecution and extermination in the 20th century.
Renovated in 2010, the entire exhibition is in English and Lithuanian and includes many new documents, new exhibits and audio-visual material such as testimonies.
In June 1941, the Nazi German army invaded Lithuania, home to around 240,000 Jews. The Nazis established ghettos in the largest cities – Vilnius, Kaunas and Šiauliai – gradually letting the populations inside die.
In 1944, the Germans withdrew from Lithuania and took with them the remaining Jewish population to concentration camps in Germany, Estonia and Poland. Few Lithuanian Jews remained, hiding with help from their neighbours. At the end of the war there were only 10,000 Jews in Lithuania.
The Vilna Gaon Museum was established in 1989 by the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture, and gained its name in 1997 during the commemoration of 200 years since the death of Talmudic scholar, Vilna Gaon. The museum was divided into 5 branches that focus on different parts of Jewish history and culture.
The Tolerance Centre displays a collection of modern and traditional art; the Paneriai Memorial; the Jacques Lipschitz Memorial Museum explores his life and legacy; the former Tarbut Gymnasium details Lithuanian Jewish history in the interwar and Nazi period; and the Green House looks at the Holocaust through the experience of Lithuania’s Jewish minority.
The Green House was named so because the exhibition is located in a green former house. The location was selected because it provides a compact and intimate environment within which to challenge visitors to think about what is the Holocaust and what did it mean to be a Jew during that period.
Today, the Green House remains open for public viewing and uses a collection of artefacts, maps, letters, photographs and more to provide a comprehensive narrative of over 600 years of Lithuanian Jewish history. The exhibition also touches on notable Lithuanian Jews, such as violinist Jascha Heifitz and the Cubist artist Jacques Lipschitz.
The focus of the exhibition is, however, on the Jewish experience of the Holocaust, from the time of the Nazi invasion to the Soviet Union. Particularly interesting are the photographs of female Jewish partisans as well as a re-created attic hideout with a short video, providing a dreadful sense of daily life for Jews during Nazi occupation.
In under half an hour you can walk from the Choral Synagogue to the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum and on to the Holocaust Museum at the Green House – a full introduction to Jewish life in Lithuania, past and present. The Green House is situated at Pamenkalnio behind some apartments. The trolley buses 1 and 7 stop on Pamenkalnio.
]]>Kernave is a small town located on the right bank of the Neris River, 35km from Vilnius, Lithuania. The Kernave State Museum-Reserve of Archaeology and History was established in 1989 as a way of recording and protecting the historical Kernave Archaeological Site. The protection zone territory is large, including the entire town of Kernave and its surroundings and covering a whopping 194 hectares with a reserve of 122 hectares, and a protected natural landscape of 2,345 hectares.
Kernave was an important feudal town in the middle ages which was then destroyed by the Teutonic Order in the late 14th century, though the site remained in use until modern times. The area represents an exceptional testimony to around 10 millennia of ongoing human settlements in this region.
Situated in the valley of the River Neris, the site is made up of a complex network of archaeological properties, encompassing the town of Kernave, forts, some unfortified settlements, burial sites and other archaeological, historical and cultural monuments from the late Palaeolithic Period to the Middle Ages. The site demonstrates examples of ancient land-use as well as the remains of five large hill forts which were part of an enormous and impressive defence system.
Though archaeologists have been working in Kernave for over 20 years, they have only researched some 2% of the protected site, and report that there is enough work to last another 100 years. The Museum of Archaeology and History already contains some 16,000 items that represent the various historical periods of the site.
The Kernave Archaeological Site Museum is noted for its forward-thinking ‘living archeology’ focus, holding its famous annual festival in July that uses materials sourced during the excavation process to demonstrate and practice making different items that have been discovered at the site.
The museum itself is like a time machine, showing visitors via interactive touch screens what the territory looked like when glaciers had drifted away, when the first hunters arrived, when settlers first started to develop farming techniques, and when the site began to rapidly grow in size and prominence during the Middle Ages. Visitors can also understand how the archaeological process works, seeing real photographs that depict everything from digging up turf to preserving precious finds.
Kernave is a 46 minute drive from Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius. The area is also a favourite of hiking enthusiasts, who state that walking round the site takes on average 10,000 steps, which the site recommends as an amount required to take in the full historical grandeur of the location.
]]>
In 2004, the Kernave Archaeological Site gained UNESCO World Heritage status and is now a popular tourist destination.
Inhabited since the 9th to 8th millennia BC, by the 12th and 13th centuries AD, the pre-Christian Kernave grew into a Christian feudal town defended by five imposing hill-forts, which can be seen there today together with many other monuments and ruins, such as burial sites. There are also the remains of the town itself, dating back to the 13th century.
The first mention of Kernave occurred in 1279 and many believe that it was the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania led by Grand Duke Mindaugas. During this period, Kernave was one of the most significant Lithuanian economic and political centres.
In medieval times Kernave suffered several attacks, including by the Teutonic Order in 1365 and another in 1390 which destroyed the town, it subsequently never being rebuilt.
A good place to visit before going to the ‘living’ archaeological site is the Kernave Archaeological Museum, which gives an insight into the site’s history and displays artefacts found there. From there, head to site that consists of a replica street with three homes along it, surrounded by thick high fences.
Each yard represents a craft learnt about through archaeological research at Kernave: bone carving, jeweller and smith. The homes are also surrounded with buildings that would have been used as workshops or animal sheds.
Sitting just on the southern edge of town facing the Neris River, Kernave Archaeological Site is just off the 116 or 4717 roads bordering Vilnius and Kaunas counties. To Vilnius, it is a 50 minute drive via the A2 or a 1 hour drive to Kaunas.
]]>The building which houses the museum is over 100 years old. Its history reflects the complicated events in the history of Lithuania at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries.
This former headquarters of the KGB (and before them the Gestapo, Polish occupiers and Tsarist judiciary) houses a museum dedicated to thousands of members of the Lithuanian resistance who were murdered, imprisoned or deported by the Soviet Union from WWII until the 1960s. Backlit photographs, wooden annexes and a disorienting layout sharpen the impact of past horrors outlined in graphic detail.
Between 1944 and the 1960s, more than 1000 prisoners were killed here. Messages of despair and defiance from those awaiting execution remain etched into cell walls. Memorial plaques honouring the dead tile the outside of the building.
The Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights was established in 1992. It is the only such museum in the Baltic States, housed in the same building where the repressive Soviet authorities NKVD and NKGB-MGB-KGB worked from the second half of 1940 until August 1991. The building’s basement contains an internal prison-interrogation isolation cell where residents of Lithuania who seemed suspicious to the occupation authorities were imprisoned from the autumn of 1940 until 1987. Visitors can get acquainted with the exhibition, which was set up in the former death penalty enforcement room.
Exhibitions at the Museum of Genocide Victims look at the history of the Soviet occupation and the activities of the Soviet secret service. There are also exhibitions on the armed and unarmed anti-Soviet resistance and those Lithuanian people who were sent to the Gulags and exiled to the remotest parts of the Soviet Union.
The museum is housed in large grey former KGB building on the main street of the western half of central Vilnius, Gedimino pr., and the various plaques on the wall are clear indicators of its former function. The entrance to the museum itself is a little more hidden, round the corner on Aukų gatve 2.
]]>At one point, Saints Francis and Bernardine Church formed part of the city’s fortifications, a fact evidenced by a series of archers’ holes and guard towers still visible today. It was then renovated in the 16th and 17th centuries, accounting for its Renaissance and Baroque elements.
Saint Francis church includes a monastery notable for owning an internet news website. It also celebrates Roman Catholic mass in English every Sunday.
The current Church was built between 1506-1516, and included the presbytery with monastic choir and sacristy, which had been preserved from of the dismantled church. The Church was considered one of the largest and most beautiful buildings in the City.
The Bernardine Monastery, which was built together with the Church, had a noviciate, seminary, a scriptorium and a library. Bernardines were renowned for their ability as preachers and as tradesmen. After the uprisings of the 19th century, the Tsarist government closed the monastery. After the Second World War, the Vilnius Art Institute (now the Academy of Fine Arts) was established in this monastery.
During the Soviet years, the Church was turned into a warehouse for the Institute of Art. Later, Franciscans re-consecrated the Church, which had been returned to them in 1994.
Today, Saints Francis and Bernardine Church is grouped with the neighbouring Church of St Anne for tourist purposes, with long and short route guided tours offered of these historic sites.
The Old Town of Vilnius follows the medieval layout and it’s easy to walk the streets and see the stunning collection of Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Classical buildings.
Guided bus, walking, and boat tours allow guests to discover the Vilnius Old Town and centre in the most immediate and hands-on way. Renting bicycles, audio guides, or Segways are often good choices for those who want to investigate the town without a group.
]]>Its founder, Hetman Mykolas Kazimieras Pacas, intended the church to mark the city’s liberation from Russia.
With its thousands of stucco figures and beautiful interior, St Peter and St Paul Church is considered to be a fine example of Baroque architecture.
The Church of St. Peter and St. Paul is widely considered to be one of the most beautiful Catholic churches in the world. With over two thousand stucco figures filling the interior, it is doubtlessly the most famous Baroque church in Vilnius.
The church is built upon the site of multiple earlier churches. The first was a church wooden of unknown foundational origin which burned down in 1594, and was rebuilt in 1609-16, forming part of a monastery complex. During the wars with Russia from 1655-61, however, the monastery was burned down and the church destroyed.
The construction of the new church was commissioned by the Great Lithuanian Hetman and Voivode of Vilnius Michał Kazimierz Pac. Though he had not previously been a patron of the church or the arts, it is said that Pac was inspired to rebuild the church after an incident in 1662 where he narrowly escaped death by hiding in its ruins.
The church we know today began construction in 1668 and was consecrated in 1701.
In 1901-05, the interior was restored again, and despite religious persecutions in the Soviet Union, extensive interior restoration was carried out in 1976-87.
The church is part of a monastery complex and is surrounded by thick, high brick walls with four octagonal chapels on each corner. A small cemetery was demolished in the 19th century.
The church is one of the most studied churches in Lithuania, in part because the main author of the internal decoration, which is made up of over 2,000 different elements, is not known.
There are many decorative elements, such as floral, military and household objects, divine and ordinary figures, and coats of arms, as well as sculptures of the twelve apostles, scenes from the life of Christ, martyrs, and knights.
Though visiting the church requires travelling outside of the old town, visitors attest to its stunning beauty as one of the most revered and ornamental Catholic churches in the world. The church runs a regular service of events for visitors and worshippers alike.
The church is a 6 minute drive from the centre of Vilnius, via T. Kosciuškos g, and there is ample parking in the area. There is a bus service – the 2, 1G, 53, and 6G – which runs every 12 minutes. It is also a 25 minute walk from the centre.
]]>