Discover Jurbarkas District Municipality

Castles and manor houses as travel ideas

One useful reference point for exploring the area is a 70-kilometre stretch of Route 141 from Seredžius to Viešvilė. Along this stretch in Jurbarkas District are cultural heritage sites such as hill forts, manor houses, castles and churches. The national “Castles and Manor Houses” route also includes the Veliuona and Jurbarkas manor houses and Raudonė and Panemunė castles. This route combines manor-house culture and gastronomy with nature, history, educational activities and entertainment. When planning your trip, you can therefore choose between the longer road section and the route identified by this theme, without treating the two as the same route.

Raudonė Castle was built at the end of the 16th century at the initiative of Krišpinas Kiršenšteinas, a Kaunas Castle scribe who had become wealthy through the timber trade. It was completed in 1600. Its 33.5-metre-high tower has an observation platform offering views of the park and surrounding area. Its history and the views provide two different reasons to explore the castle.

Panemunė Castle is a Renaissance manor-house residence built between 1604 and 1610. The property includes a 15-hectare landscaped park with five ponds. The castle museum features an exhibition of the interiors of the representative apartments of the rulers of the Principality of Žemaitija. It also displays the only surviving and restored 18th-century manor-house kitchen in Lithuania. Those particularly interested in historic living and reception rooms will find a different way to explore history here than by looking out from the tower at Raudonė.

Church, walking trail and park

St George’s Church in Skirsnemunė also tells the story of the region. This brick Neo-Gothic church was built in 1903 at the initiative of the parish priest Kazimieras Žekevičius (1840–1926). Visitors can see an old bell there: cast by H. Bedeker in 1632, it is cracked and no longer in use. The bell’s specific history also makes a visit interesting for anyone who pays attention to individual objects and their past when visiting historic buildings.

For an activity that provides information along the way, consider the Viešvilė educational walking trail. It is 4 kilometres long and has several information boards. In Jurbarkas Manor Park, by contrast, the park itself is the main attraction: it covers about 9 hectares and is easily accessible via a footbridge beside the festival stage. The options are therefore clearly different: information boards accompany you along the walking trail, while the manor-house park provides the setting for a visit to the grounds.

Choose where to stay based on your travel plans, rather than just on a general impression of the region.

More destinations

More destinations: Raseiniai District Municipality, Jonavos rajono savivaldybė, Kaišiadorys District Municipality, Prienų rajono savivaldybė, Kauno rajono savivaldybė, Kėdainių rajono savivaldybė.

For the regional travel overview: Kaunas County.