Kaunas

The interwar capital

When Vilnius was occupied by Poland between the two world wars, Kaunas, Lithuania, served as the provisional capital from 1920 to 1940. That two-decade burst of nation-building left a deep mark on the city. A new government district was needed, and Lithuanian architects — many of them trained in Germany, Italy, France, and at the Bauhaus — returned home and set to work. The result was an entire city centre built in the modernist style of the 1920s and 1930s: streamlined facades, geometric ornament, horizontal banding, rounded corner balconies, and the particular Lithuanian interpretation of Art Deco that became known as Lithuanian modernism.

In 2023, this collection was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as an outstanding example of a planned modernist city — joining only a small number of places worldwide recognised for 20th-century architecture of this kind. The core of the UNESCO-listed area covers the New Town grid, with the highest concentration of significant buildings on and around Laisves aleja, Gedimino Street, and Savanorių Prospektas. Walking these streets slowly, with attention to the upper-floor detailing, reveals a coherent vision of what a modern European capital was meant to look like in the interwar period.

Laisves aleja and the New Town

Laisves aleja — Liberty Boulevard — is the spine of the New Town and the social centre of Kaunas, Lithuania. It runs for 1.6 kilometres as a pedestrian avenue, shaded by linden trees and lined with cafes, restaurants, and modernist buildings from the 1920s through the 1940s. The boulevard is widest near its midpoint, where the Unity Square opens up on one side with a monument to Lithuanian independence. At its eastern end stands the Church of St. Michael the Archangel, a large Byzantine Revival building originally constructed for the Russian Orthodox garrison in the 1890s and returned to Catholic use after independence.

The buildings on and immediately off Laisves aleja repay close attention. The former Central Post Office at No. 102, built in 1931, is a confident example of the stripped classicism that characterised Lithuanian state architecture of the period — its tall windows and minimal ornament sit between the Beaux-Arts tradition and the modernist turn. The former Bank of Lithuania building on Maironio Street nearby is more richly detailed, with decorative reliefs on the facade. Independent coffee shops, wine bars, and bakeries now occupy many of the ground-floor commercial premises, and the boulevard remains genuinely animated throughout the day and evening.

The Old Town and Kaunas Castle

The older part of Kaunas, Lithuania, occupies the western end of the city where the Nemunas and Neris rivers meet. It is distinct in character from the modernist New Town — narrower streets, older masonry, and a residential quietness that makes it easier to imagine the medieval merchant city it once was. Kaunas Castle, built in the mid-14th century, is one of the earliest stone fortifications in Lithuania and served as the main defence point at the river confluence. Only a round tower and a stretch of wall survive — the rest collapsed over the centuries — but the remaining masonry has been consolidated and opened to visitors, with exhibitions inside the tower covering the castle's history and the archaeological finds from its grounds.

Town Hall Square, a short walk from the castle, is the historic heart of the Old Town. The white Town Hall at its centre — nicknamed the "White Swan" for its elegant tower — dates in its current form to the 18th century and now serves as a registry office for civil ceremonies. The square is flanked by merchant houses and churches representing several centuries of architectural styles. The Gothic Vytautas the Great Church nearby, built in the 15th century and named for the Grand Duke, is one of the oldest religious buildings in the city. The Jesuit Church on Vilniaus Street has an interior of considerable depth — its late Baroque nave and side altars reward a brief stop.

The M. K. Ciurlionis Museum and cultural institutions

Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis was a Lithuanian painter and composer who died in 1911 at the age of 35, leaving behind a body of work that straddles symbolism, abstract art, and musical composition in a way that has no clear parallel in European culture. He painted large series of works — the Sonata series, the Zodiac series — in which visual structure directly reflects musical form. The M. K. Ciurlionis National Museum of Art on V. Putvinskio Street holds the largest collection of his paintings and drawings anywhere, and it is one of the most distinctive small art museums in the Baltic region — worth visiting even for visitors with no prior knowledge of his work.

The museum also maintains a strong collection of Lithuanian folk art on the upper floors, including carved wooden crosses, amber objects, woven textiles, and decorated household items. The Devil Museum, a short walk away on Putvinskio Street, takes a different approach entirely: it holds over 3,000 representations of the devil and related folk figures collected from Lithuania and around the world, ranging from carved wooden figurines to satirical political artworks. It is eccentric, specific, and worth an hour.

Street art and the creative quarter

Kaunas has developed a confident street-art culture over the past decade. Large-scale murals cover building facades throughout the centre, many of them commissioned during the Kaunas Street Art Festival, which brings artists from across Europe each summer. The most concentrated area runs between the Old Town and the New Town, particularly on and around Vilniaus Street and the side streets north of Laisves aleja. Some of the murals respond directly to local history — the interwar period, the wartime Jewish ghetto that occupied part of the city, the years of the independence movement — and these have a depth of meaning that goes beyond pure decoration.

The area around Vilniaus Street has gradually become a creative district with independent galleries, design studios, and small food establishments. The Kaunas Photography Gallery on Rotušes Square shows contemporary work with a programme that extends across the city. In 2022, Kaunas served as one of the European Capitals of Culture, which accelerated a number of renovation and public space projects that have made the city more legible for visitors.

The river confluence

The meeting point of the Nemunas and Neris rivers at the western edge of the Old Town is the geographical feature that explains why a city was founded here. The rivers provided both a natural defensive barrier and a trading route, and the castle was positioned to control the confluence. Today the riverbanks on both sides have been developed as promenades — the Santaka Park at the tip of the peninsula between the two rivers is a pleasant open space with benches and a view of both waterways.

For the best overall view of Kaunas, Lithuania, take the funicular from Aleksoto Street up to the Aleksotas hilltop on the south bank of the Nemunas. The funicular dates to 1935 and is one of the few survivors of its era in Lithuania. From the hilltop, the view takes in both rivers, the spires of the Old Town, the modernist grid of the New Town beyond it, and the forested hills to the north. It is the clearest way to understand the city's geography before walking down into its streets.

The Ninth Fort

On the northern outskirts of Kaunas, Lithuania, the Ninth Fort is one of the most significant historical sites in the country — and one of the most sobering. It was built as part of a chain of defensive fortifications around the city in the late 19th century under Tsarist rule, and during the Second World War it became the primary site of the mass murders carried out by German forces and Lithuanian collaborators between 1941 and 1944. An estimated 30,000 to 35,000 people — the majority of them Jews from Kaunas and the surrounding region, as well as deportees from Germany, Austria, and France — were killed at the fort. Survivors of the Kaunas ghetto, which at its height held over 37,000 people, are documented in the fort's memorial museum.

The site today includes the original fortification buildings, the outdoor execution pits, a large concrete memorial sculpture erected in 1984, and a museum that documents the history of the fort from its construction through the occupation period and up to the 1972 self-immolation protest of Romas Kalanta, a student who set himself on fire in the centre of Kaunas in protest against Soviet rule. The Ninth Fort is a difficult but important visit. For those on a journey that takes in Lithuania's full history, it provides context for the decades of resistance represented by the Hill of Crosses and the Baltic Way — the longer arc of loss, occupation, and eventual independence that shaped the country.

Food and practical notes

Kaunas, Lithuania, has a good range of places to eat and drink. Berneliu Uzeiga on Valančiaus Street is one of the best-known places for traditional Lithuanian food — cepelinai, stuffed cabbage, cold cuts, and dark rye bread — in a setting that feels genuinely local rather than staged. Miesto Sodas on Laisves aleja is a reliable mid-range restaurant with a terrace good for watching the boulevard. The market hall at Kaunas Central Market, a few blocks east of the Old Town, is the place to buy local produce, smoked meats, and curd cheese, and to eat cheaply among locals on a weekday morning.

Kaunas is well connected by rail to Vilnius — trains run regularly and take about an hour and twenty minutes. From Riga, the journey by bus takes around four hours via Siauliai, passing the Hill of Crosses along the way. Most visitors to Kaunas, Lithuania, come as part of a circuit of Lithuania rather than as a standalone destination, but the city rewards a full day or overnight stay — it has more depth than a transit visit allows.