Discover Kaunas Old Town – 8 Charming Lithuanian Gems for Travelers

Kaunas Lithuania

Kaunas Castle
Kaunas Castle

The oldest extant construction in Kaunas Old Town is the castle tower and wall fragments. The medieval Kaunas Castle was built at the meeting point of two rivers – Nemunas and Neris – to repel frequent Crusader attacks. Constructed in the latter half of the 14th century, the enclosure-type castle lost strategic importance after the Battle of Grunwald. Vytautas the Great gave it a representational function.

It was practically destroyed by the Russian army in 1655, used as a prison in the 18th century, and preserved in the first half of the 20th century.

As a result of excavations undertaken after World War II the tower was restored. Zither Player, a granite statue erected in a square near the castle, symbolizes how vital the country’s historical legacy and traditions are.

Church of St. George the Martyr and The Bernardine Monastery

Church of St. George the Martyr
Church of St. George the Martyr

Behind the ruins of the castle loom the red brick Church of St. George the Martyr and the Bernardine monastery. King Casimir Jagiellon invited the Bernardine friars to Kaunas in 1468.

They settled close to the castle in a wooden monastery. Stone buildings replaced it at the beginning of the 16th century. Fire destroyed the church at the end of the 16th century and again in the 17th century.

Reconstruction work preserved its Gothic exterior, but interior changes introduced baroque altars, pulpits, and confessionals. In 1950 the church became a medical warehouse.

The monastery became a medical school. The complex returned to the Franciscan Order in 1993. The restored sacristy became a chapel.

Address Papilio gatve 9 Kaunas

Church of the Holy Trinity in Kaunas Old Town

Church of the Holy Trinity Kaunas Lithuania
Church of the Holy Trinity Kaunas Lithuania

The Bernardine nuns built the Church of the Holy Trinity on the west side of Rotušės aikštė in the 17th century. It acquired its present-day structure in the 18th century. The architect Mykolas Songaila redesigned it in 1939. It closed in 1963, later renovated, reconstructed, and given to the local seminary in 1982.

A post office complex built around 1820 (during the Kaunas – Suwalki road construction) beside the gates leading into the curia functioned as the Kaunas city museum from 1897 to 1934. It’s now the Museum of the History of Communications.

Address A. Jakšto gatvė 1, Kaunas

Maironis Lithuanian Literature Museum in Kaunas Old Town

Statue of Maironis (1862 - 1932), Kaunas, Lithuania.
Statue of Maironis (1862 – 1932), Kaunas, Lithuania.

On the corner stands the Maironis Lithuanian Literature Museum. It began in the poet’s flat in 1936 and was later extended to the entire building. The main exhibits are Maironis his rooms and personal items.

The other halls present the history of Lithuanian literature. There is a monument to the writer in front of the mid-18th century mansion It’s erected on 16th-century foundations and once belonged to the Kaunas court elder Sirutis.

Its cellars served as a prison after the uprising of 1863, including for one of the rebel leaders, Antanas Mackevičius. Maironis acquired a flat on the 2nd floor of the mansion in 1910. The “Sakalas” publishing firm, a library and reading room occupied the lower floor during the first half of the 20th century.

Address Rotušės aikštė 13, Kaunas

The Old Town Hall of Kaunas Old Town

Kauno rotušė

Kaunas Town Hall
Kaunas Town Hall

The Old Town Hall (reconstructed in 1780) in the center of the square is the most attractive of three such buildings surviving in Lithuania. A civic marriage bureau since 1974, it also houses a ceramic museum in the basement. The city jail once occupied the cellars, trade companies on the first floor, and magistrate and court facilities on the second floor.

Reconstruction occurred in the first half of the 19th century for cultural organizations, and then as municipal offices from 1869 until World War II. In Kaunas, the Old Townhall is known as “The White Swan”.

Address: Rotušės a. 15

Telephone: +370 620 90 619

Jesuit Church of St. Francis Xavier in Kaunas Old Town

Jesuit Church of St Francis Xavier Kaunas
Jesuit Church of St Francis Xavier Kaunas

To the right of the Town Hall on the south side of the square is the white plaster façade of the Jesuit Church of St. Francis Xavier. Nearby former monastery buildings were converted into a Jesuit high school in 1991.

The Jesuit community is from 1639. The friars purchased Perkūnas House for their own needs and began construction of the church in the square in 1666.

The sanctuary caught fire in 1732 and was only consecrated in 1759. The late baroque interior of that period is manifest in the sole surviving high altar of Jesus Crucified, made of dark red and grey artificial marble according to a design by Tomas Žebrauskas. A monastery and college appeared in 1761-1768.

Although the pope abolished the Jesuit Order in 1773, the monks stayed in Kaunas until 1787. Upon their departure, they left their property to the Franciscans. In 1825, after the side altars were torn down and the high altar covered with an iconostasis, the sanctuary became an Orthodox church (Alexander of Neva Cathedral from 1843).

Return to the Jesuits

The Jesuits recovered it when they returned to Lithuania from Germany after the First World War. They added two floors to the monastery, and college buildings, and made the college into a boys’ high school. A technical college took over the buildings during the Soviet occupation.

The church became a sports hall in 1949 (the crypt underneath the high altar became a sauna, the attic a shooting gallery). The complex returned to the Jesuits once again in 1990. Reconsecration took place in 1992. A plaque on the façade indicates that the poet Adam Mickiewicz taught at the district school in 1891 – 1823.

Address Rotušės aikštė 8, Kaunas +370 610 23331

 

Perkunas House

Perkunas House Kaunas Old Town
Perkunas House Kaunas Old Town

Traveling from Rotuses Square towards the Nemunas river one’s eye draws to a small red brick Gothic building. The name is Perkunas House, a Hansa League bureau in the 16th century.

Explanations for the name include a version that connects the building to a small statue exposed in a wall during renovations, which proved that pagan gods were ones worshiped in what may have been a temple to Perkunas (the Lithuanian god of Thunder) on this site.

It was a chapel under the Jesuits in the 17th – 18th century, a theater from 1844, a school from the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century, and a museum warehouse in the Soviet times. Returned to the Jesuits at the end of the 20th century, Perkunas House now functions as the Jesuit high school cultural center, with an exhibition dedicated to Adam Mickiewicz. He worked in Kaunas as a teacher.

Address Aleksoto g. 6, Kaunas Old Town
Telephone +370 8 641 44614

Medicine and Pharmacy History Museum Kaunas

Medicinos ir Farmacijos Istorijos Muziejus

Medicine and Pharmacy History Museum Kaunas
Medicine and Pharmacy History Museum Kaunas

Enter through the small door on the right marked Kasa and be prepared for a strange and sometimes sinister history lesson, in Lithuanian, English, Russian, or Polish. Set out on two floors and a basement, the museum traces the medical history of Lithuania with the help of miscellaneous books, skulls, dioramas, apothecary shops, barrels, a spooky cellar, some fabulous old machines, and other detritus including ancient packets of Aspirin.

There are early versions of Nivea and an explanation of why some strong Lithuanian herbal drinks are medication. If you ask nicely, you can buy the herbs and mix them with your Lithuanian vodka.

Major themes have explanations in English and you will be shown the exhibitions by a guide in English, Russian, or Polish. The guides are very capable and have a great sense of humor.

 

Address Rotuses 28, Kaunas
Telephone +370 37 20 15 69
Tuesday – Saturday 10:00 – 17:00
Sunday – Monday Closed
Admission EUR 2 per person (checked October 2020)

Getting Around In Kaunas

Kaunas Old Town By Car

Please be advised that since August 1, 2024, cars passing through the Kaunas Old Town low-emission zone must pay a 2-euro fee. Some hotels will compensate this fee, so it’s worth it to ask.

 

Where To Stay In Kaunas Old Town

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How To Get To Kaunas Lithuania

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Kaunas Old Town Map


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