It was a major fortress in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania but had fallen into a ruin by the 19th century when it was thankfully salvaged and reconstructed and is now a large tourist attraction.
Thank you for the lovely pictures, Spheno. Have you ever researched Lithuanian nobility, registered in St. Petersburg during the Russian reign? Families who owned property & serfs were required to register.
It once was a Castle of the Teutonic Knights and later was a Salesians monastery but the monks were evicted by Communists in the late 1940's and now forms part of the belongs to the Vilna Art Academy.