Hotels near Šilalė Vladas Statkevičius Museum and the Town Centre

The Šilalė Vladas Statkevičius Museum holds close to 25,000 objects from the district, from Samogitian farm tools and folk textiles to the paperwork of deportation and postwar partisan resistance. It is named after the local ethnographer who assembled the founding collection, and it is the best hour you can spend before driving out to the villages, because the exhibits explain what you are about to look at. Opening hours are 09:00 to 17:00 Tuesday to Friday and 10:00 to 16:00 on Saturday, and admission is token money: €0.50 for adults, €0.30 for schoolchildren, students, soldiers and pensioners, who get in free on the first Wednesday of the month.

The same building houses the Šilalė tourism information centre, which sells trail maps, answers the phone on +370 697 42967 and publishes current hours for every site in this guide at visitsilale.lt. Step outside and the town is a 40-minute walk. The neo-Gothic Church of St Francis of Assisi at Vytauto Didžiojo g. 7, built in 1909 to a design by Józef Dziekonski, carries a 60-metre tower, 16 stained-glass windows finished by 1914 and an organ built in 1912 by the Königsberg master Bruno Goebel. The Independence Oak on J. Basanavičiaus g. was planted in 1937, and small bronze acorns known as giliukai are set into pavements across the centre.

Pro Tip: Ask at the museum desk for the giliukai map before you set off. There are more acorns hidden in kerbs and walls than anyone finds unaided, and the hunt keeps children moving between the church and the town pond.