Vilnius Cathedral with its majestic bell tower
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Vilnius Cathedral
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When:
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Daily
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Where:
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Vilnius Cathedral
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| Costs: |
Free
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| Opening Hours: |
Daily 9am-8pm
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Behind the elegant colonnaded façade, Vilnius Cathedral in the Old Town houses fine frescoes and paintings, plus the ornate baroque chapel of St Casimir. It burnt down several times during its 800-year history and became a garage under Soviet occupation.
With a church history dating back to the baptism of Grand Duke Mindaugas in 1251 (with an earlier pagan temple on the site before that), Vilnius' Cathedral of St Stanislaus and St Vladislaus suffered various fires and repairs until Laurynas Stuoka-Gucevicius was commissioned to rebuild it in the late-18th-century by Bishop Ignacy Massalski. In 1950 the Soviets closed it and even destroyed some statues, but by the 1980s it was being restored and in 1990 it was returned to the Catholic Church. As well as its separate bell tower at the front, visit the museum in the crypt.
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