Help With Baltic Itinerary

Hey Carol, my wife and I are in our late 60s and are on the way to doing a very similar trip. We are currently in Finland for a week then we’ll take the ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn. After 3 nights in Tallinn we’ll pick up a rental car and drive to Kuressaare for 3 nights. The picturesque town of Viljandi we’ll visit on our way to Tartu where we’ll spend two nights. I plan a day trip drive through some of the southern Estonian villages in between those two nights. After Tartu we’ll drive along Lake Peipus and spend one night in Rakvere before returning the car to Tallinn.

There is an Express Bus service between Tallinn and Riga, about 4 hours, supposedly comfortable. 3 nights in Riga then a train to Cesis for two nights and train to Sigulda for two nights.

Express Bus from Riga to Vilnius and stay 4 nights. Then train to Trakai for two nights. We originally planned to continue on by train to Kaunas, but we have to go back to Vilnius and fly to Greece for some personal matters.

I felt a car was useful in Estonia to get out in the countryside and small villages. By pick up and return to Tallinn is very reasonable. Latvia and Lithuania seem easily doable by train but the bus connects better between the countries. We are staying mostly in private Airbnb with just a few nights in hotels.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, 3lovetotravel! Your reply is a great help. I had thought we might rent a car and return within each country but it's time consuming to pick up a car and then again when we return it. We have so few days in each country and it just seems getting to and from a bus/train station would take less time. But I do agree that a car is better for getting out into the countryside and seeing more of the country. My husband keeps telling me we can't see everything and it's true, but it's hard to resist when reading the itineraries posted by others.

It seems we have a similar itinerary which is encouraging. I appreciate your information and the time you took to share it.

Thanks again and I hope you have a great trip!

Hi Carol. I did a trip to these countries a few years ago. My trip was a bit faster paced than you seem to travel. But, I did two nights in Vilnius, one night in Kaunas, three nights in Riga, three nights in Tallinn, and then two nights in St. Petersburg (ferry to Helsinki, overnight from Helsinki and overnight ferry back to Helsinki, so really four nights for St. Petersburg). With the ferry, I was able to visit St. Petersburg without a Russian visa for 72 hours - very quick visit, but St. Petersburg is an amazing city, and the ferry trip was much more fun than expected.

I have driven in Europe before too, but in order to skip the expensive one-way drop fees, I uses trains and buses on this trip. This probably limited how much I was able to see, but they worked well enough. I will say that the trains don't connect up the three countries very well - even within the countries, there aren't extensive train networks, so mostly you should expect to rely on buses to get around. I took the bus from Šiauliai, Lithuania (Hill of Crosses) to Riga and the bus on to Tallinn - long rides I didn't enjoy but comfortable enough. You don't want/need a car within each city, I'd say, only to get out and see smaller towns or do day trips.

I used trains (very modern) in Lithuania to day trip to Trakai and get to Kaunas, and in Riga I used the trains (very old and not very comfortable, like a trip back in time!) to day trip to Jurmala and Sigulda.

You could consider renting a car within each country, at least for a few days, given that you will have plenty of time in each.

I really didn't fall in love with any of the Baltic countries, but they were all interesting in their own ways. Riga is by far the biggest of the cities - it feels big and important (and at one point, it was!). Tallinn was the most charming (and the most touristy), but it's pretty small, a lot smaller than Riga, so you really wouldn't need many days in Tallinn if you wanted to move a day somewhere else. Vilnius is an interesting city with a bunch of unique churches, a bit of a ramshackle feel in part, with a nice fixed-up old town and some interesting districts that have seen a revitalization. Kaunas and Šiauliai really stand out as examples of communist-era planning and architecture (which is to say, a bit bland, but interesting). The three countries have very little in common, despite being neighbors. I personally can't imagine spending three nights in little Kaunas unless I had a reason - it's not very big. I'd probably get out to the Lithuanian coast (which I didn't get to visit) instead. The town of Sigulda is very small with some pretty areas for hiking, but I would probably just do it as a day trip from Riga like I did.

I've got a trip report with lots of pictures on my website - click on my name/profile for the links.

I replied on the Estonia page...

Andrew, thanks for your great response. I read your trip reports and really enjoyed them. Will check out all your pictures later but the ones I saw were great! Such an interesting report, full of so much information. Sounds like you had a great trip. I also saw some reports on cities in Poland and will read them later as we hope to go there in September 2020. We have 'talked' a couple of times before regarding other countries and even at that time you commented that we are slower travelers. At 76 and 73 when we take this trip, we tire more easily and just don't move as quickly as we used to. That being said, your report makes me wish we had the time and energy to visit St. Petersburg. Another trip?

We're ok with buses and trains so it seems our route should work. Your comments have made me re-think the number of nights in Kaunas but will do more research. Problem for us is that after taking a bus/train, getting to the hotel (we also use booking.com) from the station, checking in, we need at least 2 nights in a town. Too many 2 nighters becomes tiring. I like your idea of buying a bus ticket in each large town; makes sense for us as we can walk farther and take a bus back.

Thanks again for your response and for your great trip reports. I'll re-read them and use them to fine tune our trip.

We visited all three Baltic countries in 2011 after our Russian tour/river cruise. We spent two nights in each country. We saw a lot in those six days. Not sure that I would want to spend more than 6 days there.

One thing that we enjoyed a lot about visiting Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania was seeing how modern those countries were after viewing that much of Russia was still suffering from it Soviet past.

Also, in all three countries the people made it very, very clear that they relished tremendously their independence and freedom from being involuntarily absorbed by the Soviet Union in the early 1940s.

geovagriffith - we also have 'spoken' about other countries. Thanks for your input. For us, flying from California, we need to spend a fair amount of time at our destination. About a week in each country is a lot less than we usually spend. We generally stay in the old town parts of each town so we don't usually see the more modern parts. It will be interesting to see if we notice their attitudes about independence. Last September we were in Romania and Bulgaria and a restaurant worker in Bulgaria made it very clear to us that she was very happy to be free of communism though she said some people longed for the system where they were told what they could and could not have and they didn't have to make any decisions. Interesting.

Thanks, Carol! By "slower travelers" I meant slower than ME - there is obviously no standard for what is fast or slow enough, LOL! Lots of others travel closer to your pace than mine. I do tend to move pretty quickly through these places, but I am usually traveling solo taking pictures. I get bored pretty easily in some of these places. I also usually don't have that long of a time to spend on one individual trip. In my case, I could have added four nights to the Baltics and slowed it down vs. taking four nights for St. Petersburg, but for me, that trade-off was well worth it. Not for everyone obviously!

I like to think back after my trips and kind of imagine how I'd feel going back and just living in these places. I thought Kaunas might have been a pleasant place to live - it seemed to offer a lot and not be mobbed with tourists. Vilnius may have been the most interesting even though not the most charming. Riga really felt like a big city almost on the scale of Paris or Amsterdam - if I wanted "big city" stuff I think I'd enjoy Riga more than the other towns. (Maybe not really that big - just felt that way with its large blocks etc.) I think Tallinn's old town charm might wear off pretty quickly if I stayed longer, but in other ways, it is the Baltic city I remember most fondly - just had a great feeling to it, not overwhelming.

Although you might tweak your itinerary a little, it seems overall very practical. You'll get to see a few places (Tartu) I had considered but didn't quite have time to see...

Well thank you, Andrew. I feel better about our itinerary but I might take one day from Kaunas and either add it to Tartu or Parnu (so we don't have 4 two night stays in a row) or shorten the trip to 22 nights. Or, if I can convince my husband maybe we can add a day to avoid all those 2 nighters. It would probably be more restful.

Thanks again for your suggestions and advice!

I loved Tallinn but I’d add in a ferry trip to Helsinki, which is a lovely city.

Thanks, This Person Who Writes Stuff. I have thought about that but we're slow travelers and this will be at the end of our trip so we might be tired. We decided that we would just enjoy being where we are. We'll have 3.5 days in Tallinn. If we get bored and have any energy left, we might fit on Helsinki. Otherwise it will have to be for another trip. Thanks again.

It would be easy to add a ferry day trip to Helsinki spur-of-the-moment if you want to. I bought my ferry ticket near the last minute. There are a lot of ferries (some bigger/faster/cheaper than others), so there is some competition. Pay attention to which ferry port in Helsinki the ferry uses - there are two ports. Arriving into the west terminal (where I arrived) is a little less scenic than the main one, I think.

Also pay attention to the weather. If it looks like storms coming in, I probably wouldn't risk a day trip of course!

We've been in Lithuanian three times for a month each, so here are some thoughts.

You can use In Your Pocket guides for the major cities in your itinerary. See inyourpocket.com

Travel by bus is easy and comfortable--Lux Express, Ecolines, .... Trains are not so good.

Consider visiting the Lithuanian Folk Museum near Rumsiskes which is about 20 miles east of Kaunas. Also in Kaunas is the Ninth Fort and its giant memorial.

Consider planning your travel between Vilnius/Kaunas and Riga to pass through Siauliai so that you can visit the Hill of Crosses. One approach would be to take a bus to Siauliai, stow your bags if that is possible, and take local transportation (bus or taxi) to the Crosses. A couple of hours there would be sufficient.

Have a great trip.

Andrew H - We'll keep an open mind about visiting Helsinki but I like your plan of using it to visit St. Petersburg so if we have time in a future year we might do that and visit Finland at that time.

Galen - Thanks for your suggestions. Will look into them. It's difficult to get to some places without a car so that will influence whether we can make it to certain locations.

Consider planning your travel between Vilnius/Kaunas and Riga to pass through Siauliai so that you can visit the Hill of Crosses. One approach would be to take a bus to Siauliai, stow your bags if that is possible, and take local transportation (bus or taxi) to the Crosses. A couple of hours there would be sufficient.

This is exactly what I did: bus from Kaunas to Šiauliai, local bus to the Hill of Crosses and back (doable if you work out the timings, but a taxi probably wouldn't cost that much, with the driver waiting for you), and then a bus on to Riga. The one I took on Riga was some sort of mini-bus and wasn't very comfortable - really took forever, but it was the most convenient bus scheduled that I could find.

Šiauliai itself was an interesting (not exactly charming) town - I'm glad I took an extra hour to wander around it after I got back from the Hill of Crosses before heading on to Riga.

Andrew - I read about your stop at Siauliai but it sounds like too rushed for us. We try for stress free travel and the stress of making those connections seem to be too much. But, I'm still researching and have a lot of time to fine tune. After the plane reservations are made I'll look into lodging and then we'll have to decide exactly how many nights in each location and how to get between them.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Carol, remember, I travel at a fast pace. = and I'm frugal ;-) I planned my stop in Šiauliai without much time to spare on purpose, but (can't remember anymore) I likely could have booked a later bus on to Riga an hour or two later. Using a taxi to get out to the Hill instead of the local buses would reduce your stress significantly and save you some travel time. The only things you'd need to worry about are the time of arrival in Šiauliai and the departure to Riga, both from the bus station in Šiauliai. If you can give yourself 5-6 hours in Šiauliai that should be plenty of time for a relaxed visit to the Hill and some time to wander around Šiauliai when you get back from the Hill. It's not a big town.

Some people do Šiauliai as a day trip round trip from Kaunas or Vilnius instead. (There are probably guided excursion trips that take you there and back and wait for you.) You can take the train from Vilnius to Šiauliai and back instead of the bus I think - the train station in Šiauliai wasn't much further from the bus station (to catch the local bus to the Hill). I considered doing that but wanted to avoid doubling back to Vilnius - saved me a few hours doing it that way, but it would have been logistically easier just to day trip to Šiauliai and then go direct from Vilnius to RIga by a comfortable express bus.

But yeah, you've got plenty of time to work things out!

Andrew, thanks for your information. If there's time a day trip might work. Will keep that in mind. Thanks again.

Hi Carol,
You don’t need to stay in Sigulda, it’s an easy day trip from Riga either by car or train. What time of the year are you visiting? Sigulda is best during foliage season, in early to mid October.
Consider going to Rundale palace near the town of Bauska; 1.5 hours from Riga by public bus, or take a guided bus tour from Riga. Gardens are beautiful there as well in late Spring and summer. Jurmala- a seaside town , 30 minutes by train from Riga. It is nice to visit on a nice sunny Summer day. Long flat beach, shallow waters.

Thanks, Irene. We're now thinking of only a day trip to Sigulda, but we're still not sure how we'll divide our days. We're going in May so beaches are not in our plans. Also, we'll be in our middle 70s at that time so rushing out on day trips is tiring. We'd rather spend 2 nights in the town, take our time, and feel relaxed. Thanks for your suggestions. We'll look into those that apply to May.