The city boasts a compact, well-preserved and nurtured Old Town, which is a concentration of valuable cultural and architectural monuments, including Kaunas Castle, Gothic Perkūnas House (The House of Thunder), Vytautas the Great and St. Gertrude Churches, Kaunas Town Hall, also called The White Swan, and a number of others.

The city offers a number of opportunities for cultural and leisure activities: several drama, pantomime and dance theatres, a puppet-show, and the Musical Theatre, which is the initiator of the perfect annual Operetta festival in Kaunas Castle. The International Kaunas Jazz Festival represents an annual emotional fiesta of music. The unique features of this festival include carillon jazz, the Jewish theme in jazz performed in a synagogue, and others.

Lithuania may be a one sport country, and Kaunas a purely basketball town, but what comes along with such a loyal obsession is a healthy, and sometimes unhealthy, lengthy after party. Fortunately, Kaunas has no shortage of bars, restaurants and clubs to keep the parties fresh and invigorating. If you are blessed enough to visit when basketball isn't tipping off, these places (all of which are covered in this guide) will keep you fed, dancing and intoxicated well into the wee morning hours if that is your speed.

Besides sport and play, Kaunas is perhaps best known for its main pedestrian walkway. Laisvės alėja, as well as being home to many of the city's fine hotels, bars and restaurants, is a virtual catwalk for the younger set and a shopper's paradise by Lithuanian standards. Locals and visitors spend countless hours marching from shop to shop along the cobble, sipping or slugging beers at quirky cafés and getting a feel for the town.