Merkinė

A small museum about the town's history, within a former Orthodox church.

The RC parish church was built in 1615 over its 14th century predecessor. It was wrecked during the Russian occupation of 1655 but rebuilt.

A piliakalnis is a partly-artificial mound, originally with wooden palisades. This one was probably constructed in the 13th century: it was torched again and again but swiftly rebuilt. A few of these were converted to stone bastions but most, including Merkinė, were abandoned after peace came in the 15th century. Park on R133 and approach via the footbridge.

Geodesic dome erected in 2002. The "pyramid" within is a triangular open frame: apparently this focuses subtle energies to help you regain long-term spiritual balance and physical health. If it doesn't, then you didn't approach in a sufficiently po-faced meditative manner, or stand barefoot in the prescribed spots.

Vincas Mickevičius (1882-1954) grew up here on a peasant farmstead. He became a scholar of philology and prolific writer, known in the west as Vincas Krėvė. In 1940 he was Prime Minister for all of a week, for the purpose of humbly inviting the Soviet Union to occupy and annex Lithuania, to which they graciously agreed, as they'd already done just that. In 1947 he emigrated to the USA. No-one can make sense of his last work Dangaus ir žemės sūnūs (Sons of Heaven and Earth), as good a reason as any to nominate him for the Nobel Prize for Literature.