Druskininkai Castle Site

The Druskininkai Castle Site is one of the best places to see the city. People have always enjoyed coming here and watching the bend of the Nemunas River. During the interwar period, the place was especially popular with the Polish Marshal Józef Piłsudski who’d come here and spend hours and hours sitting and looking at Lithuania on the other side of the shore. Historians in the 19th century claimed that a well fortified wooden castle was built here in the 13th century to help the Lithuanians defend themselves from the Crusaders. This is confirmed not only by inscriptions, but also by the finds of Teodor Narbutt that were discovered in 1826 at the bottom of the hill, near the Nemunas River, and an excavated burial ground located nearby.

However, today it’s impossible to verify these statements, as the mountain was significantly damaged by a flood that occurred in 1841. Druskininkai, too, was damaged by the current whith several bridges and a number of summer houses. Thus the current widened and deepened the bed of Ratnyčėlė River, and washed a large part of the hill on which the castle was located into the Nemunas.