Almost every trip has a stop called ‘a museum’. A weekend would probably not be enough to visit all museums in Šiauliai, since there are more than 20 of them, and some of them are even the only ones in Lithuania.
One of the largest in the country
Šiauliai Aušra Museum has as many as 8 divisions. Founded more than 100 years ago, the museum is unique in the diversity of its collections and exhibitions. Chaimas Frenkelis’ Villa-Museum with a wonderful park, a fountain and a thousand-blossom rosary are a special place in the city of the Sun. The museum building is a rare example of the early 20th-century modernist architecture, which belonged to a large owner of a leather processing factory. In the spaces of the villa, you can get acquainted with the culture of Lithuanian provincial manors and city as well as Jewish heritage in the interwar period. The Venclauskiai House-Museum is another exceptional architectural monument, a luxurious residential house, where the exposition tells the story of the famous family of in the early 20th century. The restored interior of the house adds even more uniqueness to it: the preserved wall decor of that time is rare stencil painting in the Art Nouveau, national style. The Photography Museum keeps a huge collection of almost 150 000 exhibits and cultural values. Here, visitors can become photographers for a while and even ‘get into’ the camera. The modern spaces of History Museum and its particularly abundant exposition of open storage facilities invite to travel to the distant past of the city and ‘drop in’ to the everyday life of townspeople. In the Radio and Television Museum, you are invited to take a closer look at the old television receivers, hear playing of mechanical gramophones, electrophones and tape recorders, try out the telegraph machine and send an SOS signal using the Morse code. The Bicycle Museum also offers lots of fun things to do: you can learn almost everything about this vehicle, see a replica of a 500-year-old bicycle, try out a sport road bike or a velomobile. The Žaliūkiai Miller’s Homestead-Museum surprises visitors with the opportunity to explore the spaces of the 19th century windmill, authentic grain milling equipment and bake your own bread.
And much more...
There are museums in Šiauliai, which are visited or revisited by every tourist coming to the city. The Rūta Chocolate Museum, which is housed in the country’s oldest sweets factory, invites visitors to immerse themselves in the 4000-year-old history, see one of the oldest cups for drinking chocolate, a huge cocoa tree, and after booking a workshop, to make your own sweets. The spaces of the Cats Museum, where their owners – cats – walk around, are full of images, silhouettes of this animal and exhibits from all over the world. The Valerijonas Pharmacy Museum is an impressive journey through time, where it is interesting to learn what the century-old prescriptions looked like, to see medicines produced and packaged in the past and the pharmacist’s instruments, to take a closer look at rare and world-famous medicinal products. In the Railway Museum, narrow and broad gauge railway steam locomotives, a narrow-gauge train carriage and other equipment await curious visitors, who are also offered an exclusive opportunity to ‘try on’ the profession of a train driver. The Telephony Museum, housed in the former city treasury building, has a real telephone booth, from which you can call a friend. It also surprises visitors with an extremely abundant collection of telephones of various eras and models. The Cents Room is not a museum, but a unique place in the city of the Sun with a room, throne, a Cross of Vytis. Everything is decorated with cents and litas – coins of the Lithuanian currency, donated by the country’s residents.
And that is not all!
Museums of Angels, Šiauliai District Court History, Cinema, Police, Water Management, Stasys Gliaudys Nature Museum are also interesting places in the city of Šiauliai, where you can discover, get to know, and be surprised. Advance booking is required to visit these sites.