Trakai Off The Beaten Path

Senieji Trakai is a village, known of its planning, still kept the same as from 16the century. Anyway, the main thing why people visit this place is a mound with a church. In medieval times, 14th century, Vytautas the Great born here, in nowadays not survived castle.

Here stands the church, constructed in neo - gothic style in 1899. Nearby is a monastery building. The road to Senieji Trakai from Trakai is adorned by wooden sculptures.

Senieji Trakai is about 6 kilometers from Trakai.

1 more image

Uzutrakio palace looks very nice from the island of the castle. It is small and white. In 19h century famous Lithuanian counters Tiskeviciai built this one.

Uzutrakis is about 10 kilometers from Trakai.

You could visit my Uzutrakis page for more information.

Walking around the Castle of Trakai I noticed this neoclassical building on the northern side of the lake. I didn't go there, since I didn't know how to get there without a car, and most of all I had no news about this building!
I then searched on internet when I came back and it's called Uzutrakis palace and it was built by the Polish count Jozef Tyszkiewicz in 1896/1901.
It should be a nice place to visit one day, maybe the next time I go to Lithuania! ;-)

This huge, stone church, on my picure, was located at Birutes gatve (street). Look at the clickable map of Trakai here, please. It was Roman catholic Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary from 15th to 18th century - the oldest parish church in Trakai.

The architecture of this huge church, both gothic and baroque, was not very interesting for me. There was a picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary with a Child in the main altar. This picture was believed to be magic, able to stave off misfortunes.

The first parish church was built in 1406 by Grand Duke Vytautas but it was detroyed by wars and fires.

4 more images

Trakai (in the background, on my picture) was located among 5 lakes. I walked a little bit off the beaten path, along northeastern shore of Totoriskiu lake. I could see town of Trakai across a lake there. The best seen was a catholic church with the two square towers.
By the way, this area of Lithuania was full of signed and mostly not signed walking trails.

I found this house, on my picture, in northern part of Karaimu gatve (street). This house was very typical for Trakai.

Typical local house was wooden, 1-floor with pitched roof. Locals used to put metal roofing, corrugated iron sheets especially. The houses were painted usually in either green or yellow/orange/light brown colours. Pay attention to typical wooden porch/vestibule with a lot of small windows. Many houses had satellite dishes fixed somewhere on a roof.

2 more images

Walking along shores of Galve Lake I enjoyed pretty views over a lake and castle island. Additionally I met this family of swans on my picture - mother and her 8 fur-coated babies (Turkish or Karaim model of family? :-). Hmm... they swimmed following my direction waiting for any food from me. Hmm... if I had any...

1 more image

There were quite many old, wooden houses in Trakai. These ones, on my picture, were described as traditional Karaims' houses. They were located along Karaimu gatve (street) close to the bridge to the island castle. Map here.

Karaimes were people of Turkish origin brought to Trakai from Crimea at the end of the 14th century.