The story of Kaunas Castle

Stand by these walls and picture the spring of 1362. A year earlier, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, Winrich von Kniprode, had ordered information gathered on how thick the walls of Kaunas Castle were. In March the Knights arrived with a siege tower and wall-breaking machines. About 400 Lithuanian soldiers under Prince Vaidotas, son of Grand Duke Kęstutis, held out for three weeks, but the walls were breached, and apparently only 36 defenders survived.

Kęstutis soon regained and rebuilt the castle, and in 1384 it changed hands twice more. After 1398 the Knights could no longer retake it, and the Lithuanians raised new walls 3 to 3.5 metres thick. Vytautas the Great often stayed here, and in 1549 Sigismund Augustus gave the castle to his wife, Barbara Radziwill.

Floods, wars and houses built in its yard later caused great damage, and today roughly one-third of the original castle remains, home since 2011 to a branch of the Kaunas City Museum.