War Museum, Kaunas

Vytautas the Great War Museum, Kaunas - darkometer rating : 3 - A landmark pile in the centre of Kaunas , Lithuania , and home to a rather stuffy, old-fashioned military museum, which, however, has a few items of special interest to the dark tourist too. > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: The name of the museum, in case you were wondering, goes back to Lithuania's national hero who was ruler of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the country's glory days in the Middle Ages in the 14th and 15th century. His name is everywhere, so why not lend it to this museum as well … The museum was built in the inter-war years when Kaunas was the capital of an independent, albeit much shrunk Lithuania – as large parts of its territory had been eaten up by Poland and other neighbours, but at least the remainder of the state was again independent from Russia , if only briefly ... Given that Lithuania's war glories lie far in the past the size of the museum building seems a little exaggerated, but its contents aren't actually all about war. First and foremost, the museum houses the mangled wreck of the “Lituanica” plane that the country's famed aviation pioneers Steponas Darius and Stasys Girėnas successfully navigated non-stop all the way from New York , USA , and across the Atlantic and much of Europe … only to fatally crash, under still unclarified circumstances, shortly before reaching Kaunas. But as is so often the case, dead heroes are frequently more revered than surviving ones, and this is certainly the case for Darius and Girėnas.