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Photo: Pudelek (Marcin Szala), CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
A pilgrimage site 12 km north of Šiauliai. It's a hillock or embankment packed with crosses - over 100,000 at the latest estimate in 2006, with more arriving daily. The cross was a pagan symbol long before Lithuania's conversion to Christianity in 1387, the last European country to convert, and there may already have been a tradition of planting them here on the site of a hill fort. However the modern cult started in 1831 after a failed uprising against Russian rule; many rebels' bodies were never found so their families planted crosses here in remembrance. Another uprising in 1863 had the same outcome. The hill thus became symbolic of Lithuanian national endurance under oppression. The Soviets bulldozed the site three times and erected fences and ditches, but back came the crosses. Pope John Paul II visited in Sept 1993 - the open structure just north is where he held mass. You're free to plant your own cross so long as it's less than 3 m tall, and tourist shops sell these. Good luck finding a place to plant it, and many visitors have failed to, so in places crosses lie in a jumble like a scrapyard.
Hill of Crosses is a site of pilgrimage about 12 km (7.5 mi) north of the city of Šiauliai, in northern Lithuania. The precise origin of the practice of leaving crosses on the hill is uncertain, but it is believed that the first crosses were placed on the former Jurgaičiai or Domantai hill fort after the 1831 Uprising. Over the generations, not only crosses and crucifixes, but statues of the Virgin Mary, carvings of Lithuanian patriots and thousands of tiny effigies and rosaries have been brought here by Catholic pilgrims. The exact number of crosses is unknown, but estimates put it at about 55,000 in 1990 and 100,000 in 2006. It is a major site of Catholic pilgrimage in Lithuania.
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Rebuilt in 2022, the city's history is now exhibited here.
Šv apaštalų Petro ir Pauliaus katedra
Prominent with its 75 m spire, this large Roman Catholic church was built in Renaissance style in the 1620s. It was part defensive - note the shooting loops - as it was at risk from armed robbery and sectarian riots. It was bashed about in wartime but restored, and promoted to cathedral in 1997. Pity about the drab modern block of flats next to it.
A lakeside park, where a Golden Boy on a column shoots an arrow in the general direction of Minsk. The column casts a shadow on a sundial below, and commemorates the Battle of Saule (which means "sun") on 22 Sept 1236. The Livonian Brothers of the Sword advanced out of Riga to lay into the pagan Samogitian and Semigallian tribes, and to link up with their allies the Teutonic Knights of Prussia. But on swampy ground they were slaughtered by lightly-armed, more agile pagan forces; the Brothers were broken by the defeat, and their territories rebelled. Their survivors joined the Teutonic Knights, which remained powerful until broken in turn at Grunwald in 1410. The site of the Battle of Saule is thought to be Jauniūnai, 30 km northeast of town towards Joniškis.
Katinų muziejus
Collection of feline memorabilia, plus six live cats that appreciate being stroked, and a sad mini-zoo.
Small exhibition of what your gran watched, no signage in English.
Sv Ignaco Lojolos baznycia
This was built as a Jesuit oratory in 1936, shut down under the Soviets, but rebuilt as an RC church in the 1980s.