Anykščiai – Traupis – Taujėnai – Užulėnis – Rumšiškės – Kaunas
- Traupis Botanical Garden is the only school botanical garden in Lithuania. All of the plant collections (the Traupis Botanical Garden already has more than 8,000 species, forms and varieties of plants in total) were collected by one person: Sigutis Obelevičius. You will find everything from perennial flower collections and rock garden to a flower clock and decorative pool with aquatic plants. The botanical garden also has large collections of protected plants, herbs, outdoor and garden plants, and medicinal plants. Tours are often given by the founder and cultivator of the garden, Sigutis Obelevičius.
Taujėnai Manor has long been known for its opulence and splendour. The interior of the manor house was decorated extensively with the Radziwiłł family’s portraits, sculptures, hunting trophies, and antique weapons. The highest place was selected for the manor house, with the picturesque ponds spread out below in the west. Taujėnai Manor has an English landscape park, where the old oak trees are of the greatest value. The park covers an area of about 25 hectares, and the cascade ponds have been restored.
In Ukmergė District, visit President Antanas Smetona’s Užugiris Manor, which now houses a memorial museum in his honour. Other farm buildings, the president’s apple orchard, the saunas, and the staff buildings have also survived to this day. The manor was built on the shore of a lake which can be reached by a path that leads you through a tree-lined avenue, in the footsteps of the president himself.
Open-Air Museum of Lithuania is one of the largest (194 ha) and most abundant (91,420 exhibits) open-air ethnographic museums in Europe. The exposition is made up of individual farms, homesteads, villages and a town, which showcase the old architecture, culture, way of life, and garden plants of the Lithuanian ethnographic regions. At the Aukštaitija and Žemaitija homesteads, you can see unique apple varieties - ‘Suislepp’, ‘Rudens dryžuotasis’ (‘Autumn Streaked’), ‘Popierinis’ (‘White Transparent’), ‘Lietuvos cukrinis’ (‘Lithuanian Sugar’) that have been traditionally grown since ancient times. The flower gardens at the museum homesteads are made up of plants that are traditional and specific to the particular region. At most of the homesteads, vegetables and medicinal and ornamental plants are grown side by side. The Aukštaitija village features the ‘fragrant garden’, where you can become acquainted with the medicinal and culinary herbs grown at Lithuanian homesteads as well as their medicinal properties.
For meals we recommend:
- Homestead „Roko sodyba“, Kaišiadorys District
- President Antanas Smetona’s Užugiris Manor’s Restaurant „A le carte“, Ukmergė District
- Taujėnai Manor‘s Restaurant „Roko virtuvė“, Ukmergė District
