Monte Pacis

Monte Pacis sits within the Pažaislis monastery ensemble, on a peninsula of the Kaunas Reservoir at the edge of Kaunas. Grand Chancellor Kristupas Zigmantas Pacas built it in the 17th century as the monastery’s guest house, for travellers and for himself. It stands beside a Baroque church by the Italian architects Pietro and Carlo Puttini and Giovanni Battista Frediani. Inside, the guest house keeps its high ceilings, fresco paintings, oak furniture and shuttered windows.

What gives Monte Pacis its character is that it was never built to be a hotel. It was the guest wing of a Camaldolese hermitage. Pacas named the hill after his own family, Mountain of Peace, and the building still shares the grounds with a church known for its hexagonal plan, its concave facade and more marble than any other Baroque church in the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania. As a wedding venue in Kaunas, Monte Pacis feels historic, hushed and remarkably intact, with three centuries of Baroque architecture already in place.