The beginning of the Vincas Kudirka Museum goes back to the Kudirkos Naumiestis secondary school, where a study group of young historians operated from the late 1950s. The museum building was was erected on the site of the house where Kudirka lived when he created the Lithuanian national anthem, Tautiška giesmė, in 1898.

The Vincas Kudirka Museum introduces visitors to Vincas Kudirka, as well as the town in which he spent the final years of his life. It also tells the story of Lithuania in the second half of the 19^th century, when the Czarist occupied country set out on its path to independence.

Vincas Kudirka (1858–1899) was a physician and writer. The exhibition presents his various activities, the political, literary and scientific newspaper Varpas, which he published, as well as the story of his personal life, the last past of which was spent in Naumiestis. A visit to the museum is therefore both a journey through the Suvalkija cultural region and its unique border town Kudirkos Naumiestis.

The museum also tells the story of a phenomenon that is unique to Lithuanian history – the story of Lithuania’s book smugglers, who circulated banned Lithuanian literature during a press ban (1864–1904) in the last stage of the country’s occupation by Imperial Russia, and which was instrumental in preserving the Lithuanian language.

Gediminas Castle Tower is a surviving 15^th century western tower of the Gothic stone castle, which was built during the reign of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas. 

The symbol of Vilnius is visible from many spots in the Old Town and is portrayed in numerous works of art. It is one of the best places to see the magnificent panoramas of Vilnius and the most frequently visited branch of the National Museum of Lithuania. Its exhibition invites visitors to learn about the history of Vilnius as the centre of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and also to take in the most spectacular panoramic view of the city. Over a century ago the Lithuanian flag was first flown at the top of the tower. The fluttering national flag reminds us that Gediminas Tower is a symbol not only of Vilnius, but of Lithuania as a whole.

The birthplace of Jonas Basanavičius contains a solitary homestead of a well-to-do Suvalkian farmer with traditional residential and auxiliary buildings from the late 19^th to early 20^th century. This is where the leader of the national revival movement, physician and public figure, dr. Jonas Basanavičius (1851–1927), grew up. The homestead of Jonas Basanavičius is surrounded by an oak grove of the National Revival of Lithuania.

The house-museum of the artist and collector Kazys Varnelis (1917–2010) is reminiscent of a residential house. Its small rooms rich in details of early Gothic architecture contain the exhibits of historical prints, maps and Western European sculptures, supplemented by sets of Renaissance and Baroque furniture and abstract paintings by Varnelis. Harmony based on contrast makes the entire exhibition extraordinary. Accumulated for fifty years and given to Lithuania, Kazys Varnelis’s collection is a significant contribution to the collections of cultural treasures of Lithuania. It enriches the existing collections and introduces new principles of building an exhibition.

Located in the New Arsenal, the National Museum of Lithuania’s main exhibition invites visitors to learn about both the history of the Lithuanian state and Lithuanian ethnic culture.The New Arsenal is one of the oldest buildings in Vilnius castle complex. Archaeological excavations show that in the 14^th century in this place stood a Gothic brick building, the outer wall of which was at the same time the defensive wall of the castle. In 1545 Franco Hogenberg's Vilnius plan we see a long one-storey brick building, completed at the eastern end by a high tower – a "lighthouse" that was supposed to illuminate the barges floating in Neris river. The purpose of the building itself is not specified.

Later, 1737 Fiurstenhof’s plan depicts a building in this location, connected by a transverse building with two other buildings standing in parallel. This whole complex ensemble consisted of the houses and outbuildings of the servants of the Grand Duke's manor. It is assumed that in this building from 1648 to 1794 the Castle Jurisdiction Court and Administration was located.

In the second half of the 18^th century this building was reconstructed into barracks and named the New Arsenal. After the reconstruction, the changed external appearance of the building has survived to this day. In 1968 – the building was adapted for the exhibition of the National Museum of Lithuania.

The Old Arsenal is one of the most interesting buildings of the 16^th century Vilnius castle ensemble. It is a former Lithuanian state cannon and ammunition storage center. It has survived to this day, and is only partially, the largest eastern corps.

In 1960–1987 the compound was converted to a cultural space: the eastern wing was restored according to 18^th century Lithuanian artist Pranciškus Smuglevičius’s original drawings and was handed over to the National Gallery of Art of Lithuania, while the National Museum of Lithuania took over the western and eastern wings. The latter is where today’s visitors can find the largest and most valuable collection of Lithuanian archaeological artefacts.

The house of the Signatories of the Act of Independence of Lithuania is a historical and architectural monument, where the Act on the Restoration of Independence of Lithuania was signed on February 16, 1918.

The renewed display uses both classical and new technologies to present Lithuania’s path toward statehood starting with the second part of the 19^th century all the way up to signing the fateful 16 February Act of Independence. Lithuania’s fate at that time depended on the historical interplay between active personalities, civil societies, the Lithuanian nation itself and the whole world. The nation’s political consciousness was developing not only within cultural, charity and educational societies but also in the homes of intellectuals, through writing scientific papers and journalism, discussions, creative work. Visitors will have the opportunity to see Lithuanian publications from 1904–1915, articles of association and other documents of the societies, photographs of the Lithuanian Scientific Society and newspaper offices of that time. Event posters will remind us how keen people were to go to plays, concerts, gala evenings and educational courses.

The Bastion of the Vilnius Defensive Wall is a unit of the National Museum of Lithuania. In the 15^th-16^th centuries, the strengthening Grand Duchy of Muscovy, later the Tsardom of Russia, began to threaten Lithuania. Therefore, to ensure the safety of Vilnius, the Lithuanian Grand Duke Aleksandras granted the residents’ request to build a defensive masonry wall in 1503. As a component part of this wall, in the early 17^th century, a bastion was built on Tower Hill near the Subačius Gate. A bastion is a fortifying defensive structure made of earth and masonry. A bastion consists of a tower, a horseshoe-shaped artillery section and a connecting tunnel. It is hypothesised that the author of the design of the Bastion of the Vilnius Defensive Wall is military engineer Fryderyk Getkant.

During the war against the Tsardom of Russia in the 17^th century and the Great Northern War in the 18^th century, the Bastion suffered greatly and, with the passage of time, lost its defensive value. In the 19^th century, by order of the Tsarist Russian government, the bulk of the defensive fortifications, including the remains of the Bastion, were demolished and its trenches and masonry were covered over. In 1966, archaeologists and architecture researchers started working at the site; reconstruction of the Bastion of the Vilnius Defensive Wall was begun. In 1987, a museum was opened at the Bastion.

The Former Detention House stands at 1 Kosčiuškos Street, at the confluence of the Neris and Vilnia rivers. The last prisoners left the building in August 2019.

According to ancient historical sources, a palace belonging to the Chodkevičius family, noblemen of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, once stood on this site. During the 16^th and 17^th centuries the building was ruled by another family, the Sanguškos. Throughout the 18^th century the palace had a series of other owners.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Czarist Russian authorities expropriated the building and manor site from its final owner, Jonas Chodasevičius. Shortly afterwards the occupying authorities turned Gediminas Hill and the surrounding territory into a military bastion, and the Former Detention House began to serve military purposes.

The building later became a prison for political prisoners. During the 1863–1864 Uprising more than 1,000 individuals were held here, including eight of the 21 rebels condemned to death. After they were executed in Lukiškės Square, these rebels’ bodies were secretly buried on Gediminas Hill.

The building continued to function as a detention centre until the fall of 2019. As soon as the last prisoners left the building it was handed over to the National Museum of Lithuania, and today this unusual museum site has been adapted for holding exhibitions.

The House of Histories exhibition space is the newest and most modern branch of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art. Its ground floor houses an exhibition-repository. The first and second floors serve as exhibition spaces where history is presented to the visitor not as a fixed past, but as an integral part of our past and present reality.

The basement floor of the building houses a vault and exhibition space containing collections related to 18^th–20^th century Lithuanian folk architecture, interiors, and tools. During special excursions visitors can become acquainted with distinctive Lithuanian ethnographic museum-pieces, each of which has its own unique place.