Sightseeing: a museum day in Vilnius

Hello!

I haven’t done a sightseeing post in a very long time but today is the day that I bring it back. Hope you’ll enjoy it!

Some of you may know that my favorite city in Lithuania (my native country) and one of my favorite cities in the world is Vilnius – the capital of Lithuania. I have already done a post about places I enjoy visiting while in Vilnius (find it here). Luckily, today, I had another chance to visit 3 of the capital’s biggest museums, which I can’t wait to tell you all about.

To begin with, me and my aunt visited a fashion exhibition at the Lithuanian Museum of Applied Art (museums site here). Here we saw an exhibition called “Three Centuries of Fashion“. All of the clothes and the accessories, dating back to 18th, 19th and 20th century, were from the collection of Alexandre Vassiliev. He is an internationally acclaimed French (though born in Russia) costume and set designer as well as a fashion historian. His collection truly conveys and reflects the words of the King of France Louis XIV that fashion is a “mirror of history”. 

My favorite pieces were the flapper/swing dresses from the 1920s (a la The Great Gatsby): 

Also, I really loved the puffy dresses and accessories from the 1960s (a la Hairspray):

There was also another exhibition consisting of pieces from slightly newer Vassiliev’s collection. This one was called a ‘Rebellion in a Boudoir‘. Clothes, which were presented, were from the era of the hippies – 1970s. Colorful dresses, crazy prints, punk jackets and grunge vests as well as sequined jumpsuits were all included. ABBA’s music was playing in the background. It felt like falling through a wormhole into my grandpa’s young adult days.

Next, we went to the Lithuanian National Museum (visit its site here) which houses a wide variety of exhibits. You can find a plethora of paintings, old books and statues, ethnographic clothes, swords and spears and many more things, which have one thing in common – they represent the history of Lithuania and its surrounding countries. Surprisingly, you can even find paintings from Japan, which were gifted to counts and dukes of Lithuania and ended up in a museum a few centuries later. There is also a massive reproduction of one of the biggest battles of the medieval Europe – the battle of Grunwald (wiki).

Lastly, we visited the The Museum of Money (link here), which, to my mind, is one of the best if not the best museum in Lithuania for the way it uses modern technologies. The admission to the museum is free but you can do so many things here and not just stare at blank walls. The museum presents the history of the Lithuania’s currencies as well as provides visitors with the information about the world currencies via interactive computer with 9 screens. You can also see a wide variety of international money in person. Plus, a bunch of computers invite you to test your knowledge of money and finance or challenge you to try to guess which country in Europe a certain euro coin belongs to. You can even get a few free souvenirs – one of them is a book mark, which you make by pressing a seal of a coin on a piece of metal in a special machine. Another attraction is a special weighting scale where you can get an official document, which pronounces your worth: you weight yourself and find out how much would you cost in dollars and euros if you were made from gold, silver or platinum.

 Amber as the first currency in trading.

 World currencies – this one is from Hong Kong.

The pyramid made from the smallest currency of Lithuania – a million of cents (pennies). True, these are the pennies of litas (a penny is a one hundredth of a litas) and my country has joined the Euro zone in January of 2015, so these coins have no worth anymore.

The receipt of my own personal worth and a handmade bookmark.

To sum up, I really liked spending a day in Vilnius once again. I love fashion, so, I highly enjoyed seeing the clothes from all the different eras. Moreover, I am a huge history buff, so visiting a national museum was a dream come true. Lastly, who doesn’t like money and doesn’t want to know more about it?

If you ever get a chance to visit the capital of my country, I suggest you check these places out. Sadly, both fashion exhibitions will only be open till the end of October, so don’t miss out. Have a great day! Bye!