Day 516: Kernave Archaeological Site

Time for the next world heritage site! Today's stop was the Kernave Archaeological site, about an hour to the north-west of Vilnius, so off we went! This was the very first capital of Lithuania, dating back to the 11th century, though the settlement had existed for much longer than that. There were some large natural hill forts overlooking a little river valley where the settlement was located which was OK, but nothing much to see other than a reconstructed village.

In the 13th century, German knights from the Teutonic Order attacked the town and burned, then returned again 50 years later and attacked once more. This time the villagers burned their own town as a defence mechanism, and the town was never reestablished.

But what's interesting is that because it was then buried by alluvial soil and left undisturbed for centuries, archaeologists exploring it in the 19th century discovered all sorts of stuff, dating back even to the Stone Age from 10,000 years BC! Crazy, and very cool.

Overall the site was average, some interesting history but not a whole lot to physically see. The museum was quite well done though, so that made up for it.

Decided to cut across country on the way back and visit Trakai Castle, one of the more famous landmarks in Lithuania. It's a large brick gothic castle from the 13th century, and a huge tourist attraction. It was placed on the Tentative list for Lithuania quite a while ago, but due to the amount of "reconstruction" that had been done in a haphazard fashion, the government decided to just leave it as a tourist attraction and not continue with the heritage listing.

We had a look from across the lake, where it looked nice enough, but the place was an absolute zoo with tourists. In the end we just had plates of local pastries from a cheap restaurant overlooking the lake and then drove back to Vilnius, just in time for another thunderstorm.Read more