I am planning the following trip with a few friends this July, with days approximate:
> Helsinki 2 nights
> Talinn 3 nights
> Riga 2 nights
> Vilnius 3 nights
> Białystok 2 nights
> Kalinigrad 4 nights
> Gdansk 4 nights
We want to visit one of those unique Baltic beaches that stick out into the ocean such as Hel, which we will probably do on the Gdansk leg.
Any recommendations on what to do in the Baltics and Kalinigrad? Helsinki looks kind of boring, as does Riga. Talinn (picrel) looks interesting for its architecture alone.
Our hobbies are world war 2 history, rigorous mountain hikes, Soviet legacy, architecture, but also beaches, cool clubs/social experiences, and enjoying the summer vibe away from minorities and excessive tourists
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Forgot to add, we are already visiting the Wolf's Lair , Hitler's world war 2 bunker. Originally planned to reach it from Białystok, but turns out that's a 3 hour drive, so will probably take a taxi from Olsztyn instead I guess?
in Vilnius you might enjoy Lukiskes prison, you can go up the TV tower and read about the soviet legacy from there, there's a neat kabob place that tries to give soviet feel called Azerai (there is 2, the 1 that is more north has more authentic feel), of course climbing the castle hill is interesting too
if you go outside of Vilnius there is a place called Gruto Parkas which has all of the soviet statue put in one place and you can experience soviet style canteen there
thanks.
> odd choice
i know they don't cater to tourists, I remember reading a story of how a Hindu family moved in there and they burned their house to the ground. but basically it's just along the way so why not. Białystok is also close to the Bialowieza Forest - has anyone been and is it worth going there for hikes or to see bison?
By bus from Białystok/Olsztyn, and then take another bus from Konigsberg to Gdansk.
This forest is the only reason people come here actually. Definitely stop there if you can. On a side note, there is a really cute village called Supraśl near Białystok, and there is a tiny restaurant called Jarzębina. They serve probably the best traditional eastern Polish food you can eat anywhere. The queues are rather long, but definitely worth it.
>t. live there
>Bialystok
really odd choice here, the city has its character, but definitely doesn't cater to tourists/travelers and isn't Baltic in any way
>Kaliningrad
fully skippable, unless you want to look at it, and then sit down and weep for those 4 nights
would swap those for a couple of days of lake hopping in that region east of Olsztyn
How are you going to get to Königsberg?
>Gdansk
I adored Gdansk, but expect the big Polish tourist cities to be overrun in the evening by people hocking standup bars. It's incredibly shady and a lot like American panhandlers. Pretty, though.
>Helsinki
yeah it sucks. Go to Suomenlinna - buy the public transport day ticket you can use it for the ferry there and back as well as all the trams (infact if you're moronic like me buy a ferry return ticket from the machines at the ferry dock they will literally just spit out the day ticket to you). Definitely absolutely check out the military museums on Suomenlinna for >ww2 history
get drunk on the ferry across to Tallinn cause that's what all the finns onboard are going to be doing
>Tallinn
It was my favourite of the 3 baltic capitals but the old town is small. The maritime museum is the best museum there, specifically the branch which is quite a bit out of the old town (Lennusadam). There is one of those carriages vehicle (a road vehicle painted to look like a train for tourists) from outside the maritime museum branch in the "fat margaret" building at the north end of the old town that will take you out to the one further out. It's one ticket for both parts and you don't have to go to both in the same day
>Vilnius
The best view of vilnius is from the three crosses so climb up the hill to those
>Riga
Latvian war museum is the best museum there by far and has free entry
>General
There are tourist transfer tours that take you between Tallin and Riga, and Riga and Vilnius that stops off at some places along the way. Basically it's a full day, I did one between Riga and Vilnius which stopped at salaspils memorial, runda palace, hill of crosses and Kaunas. Tb h you don't get much time at each, like 1 1/2 hours? but it was a cool day and better than a zzz 4 hour luxexpress if you can spare the time to leave the capitals for a bit and don't have your own transport
> nothing unique or special to see in baltics but memorials & military museums
there has to be more to the region than that...
no need for name-calling you stupid homosexual. We wanted to see some Russia/Oriental culture and it was that or Belarus, and from what we can see it's easier to get a visa into Kalinigrad than into Belarus. Canada doesn't even have a working Belarussian consulate anymore and train service between Warsaw and Brest has been suspended.
>We wanted to see some Russia/Oriental culture and it was that or Belarus
Tallinn and Riga are full of Russian squatters
> nothing unique or special to see in baltics but memorials & military museums
>there has to be more to the region than that...
you literally asked for ww2 history and soviet legacy
rigorous mountain hikes? highest point above sea level in the entire baltics is about 200m mate.
yeah fair enough, cheers
>Soviet legacy
Each baltic capital has their own take on the occupations in their own occupation museum although if you don't want to do it x3, Lithuania has the most interesting history of it but I preferred the occupation museum in Riga (better presentation)
the kgb tour at the Viru hotel in Tallinn was pretty interesting and fun. There's one in a former police building (iirc) in Riga too. There isn't much overlap between the 2, both interesting to do
>Bialystok
>Kalinigrad
just kys after Vilnius bydlo
Helsinki is kinda boring yeah so 2 nights is fine. If you want to see something other than the castle and the basic central city area I suggest going a bit further out from the centrum to see some of the older neighborhoods. Since you're going in the summer the Kumpula area has like 3 botanical gardens which are nice to see as well as some almost freakishly uncitylike old buildings which are cozy to see in the urban hellscape that is Helsinki. I'm a nature person so I like that kind of stuff. If you don't care about that then I say get in and get out quickly. There ain't much to see or do in Helsinki at the best of times.
Okay we decided to abandon Riga as it felt like everything there we can see in Estonia and Lithunia, we might stop there for the black balsam drink on our way to Vilnius.
Instead we'll spend 2 nights in Grodno, Belarus, taking advantage of the visa free zone near the border
I currently live in helsinki and previously I have lived in estonia and latvia, I can speak estonian and finnish pretty well and a little bit of russian.
Helsinki is very expensive, locals are boring and unsocial, reataurants mediocre at best and overall it's basically just a crappy version of stockholm where people are less civilized and it doesn't really feel like a cosmopolitan western european country but it's not rustic and traditional like eastern europe.
It's really soulless.
The nightlife is absolute dogshit.
Drugs are very expensive and low avg quality, same goes for beer
Finnish women are below avg looking and very promiscuous, prone to mental illness.
Men are either, soulless robots, wimps or rednecks
If you like hipsters go to kallio, lots of junkies there but they're harmless
If you like generic tourist traps full of chinks and instagrammers go to the central market, esplanadi and walk aroun in the area
Tourists usually end up in ullanlinna area and think helsinki is really amazing and beautiful but that's because it's the most expensive zip code in the country, it's not even impressive, it's basically just like any generic european upper middle class area
Itäkeskus is the "bad area" of the city but they have some ok restaurants there though and lots of interesting shops in the old mall across the street that has been overrun by arabs and somalis, basically a bazaar
Suomenlinna is just sparsely scattered ruins of a fort that was probably cool back in the day but it's really underwhelming
Sompasauna is a makeshift "hippie" sauna/hangout place in sompasaari, it used to be somewhat of an underground thing but has become popular even among tourists in recent years
If you like sauna and talking nonsense with hipsters, backpackers and elderly people then you might like it
There are plenty of museums but none that are comparable to any world famous ones like hermitage or the british museum, basic stuff, nothing special
I'd skip hell_sinki
Tallinn is easily the best and most interesting baltic capital if not all of northern europe.
I personally hate the old town, it's a complete tourist trap and local don't really go there much except at night when the district turns into a bustling nightlife quarter that is possibly among the best I've ever been in
Nightclubs tend to be not so great, estonians love drugs like coke and speed so expect techno, russian mafia and druggies but the bars and restaurants are really good, it's a great place for barhopping
Pretty much every restaurant in the old town is a ripoff, avoid them, go to baltijaama turg instead
It's a big market with lots of dining options and antiques shops upstairs, the surrounding are is the "rustic" hipster district of tallinn
Tallinn has many spas and they're cheap
Several rooftop bars near the centre, some on highrises, great views
I've only lived in small towns in the estonian countryside, never tallinn
To me it's a city where you go to spend a night or two and see what you can get yourself into
It's the kind of place where you will be ok just walking about, consuming, taking pics and doing the usual touristy stuff without feeling like a complete idiots.
Tallinn is cool but the only special thing there is the old town at night, apart from that it's just a really small city with not much else going on but despite havibg less than ⅓ of helainki's population there's way more things to do there.
Not super exciting but cool.
I just bought air tickets to stay a week in Stonia, arriving and leaving from Tallinn.
I was planning to stay at the Old Town, but you shitted so much about it, so where's a better place to stay?
I've found this itinerary for a week in Stonia, I was thinking about 4 nights in Tallinn and 3 nights around Kuressaare. You reckon this is good enough? I'll be renting a car.
I've been to both Riga and Vilnius, should I expect something very different from Tallinn? Food wise, anything you recommend that I cant miss out trying?
And out of the three Baltic countries, how expensive is Stonia compared to the other 2?
Thx
Riga sucks ass, most latvians hate it and city's population has been declining steadily for 30 years straight
It's ugly, dangerous boring, depressing, overpriced, corrupt, frick riga
The only places worth visiting in LV are cozy comfy town like kuldiga, talsi, cēsis etc.
Latvia overall is not a very nice country
yes if you see above we decided to ditch Riga. we're just going to drive through the country on our way to Vilnius
grim.
Talinn and it's obviously in winter when it snows. judging by christmas trees might be december but the frick do I know
Vilnius has a nice toen centre and due to it not beibg a popular destination it doesn't feel so much like a trourist trap.
I've been there 3 times, the old town is cool and fun and all that but once you leave that small bubble it's just USSR concrete block dystopia everywhere
Vilnius might just be simultaneously the uglest and the prettiest baltic capital
Lithuanians are generally friendly and nice but a lot of people there are depressed
I like lithuania but the biggest issue for me is that while things look nice on the surfave for a tourist all the depression and greyness can't be ignored as it's so apparent everywhere
There's some medieval castle outside of vilnius, might wanna check that out
It's cheap, locals are nice, it feels bigger than the other capitals and doesn't really have overwhelming negative apart from the soviet hellscape outside the centre and general depressive vibe
It's mediocre
i came here to shit on tallinn (btw ignore the poster above saying old town has great night light), but after reading all the other posts of people shitting on their cities, I think you get the idea OP. these are butthurt belt countries and when people base their identity on 'muh occupation and suffering' then there is no room for things that are new, fun and interesting
spend 2 days in each baltic city and helsinki (dont skip riga, it has distinct architecture), one day for walking around old town areas, one day for museums or guided tours (ie you can go to rummu prison ruins in asstonia)
Pic is kino. Where is it? Time of the year?
skip helsinki unless you want to be in a boring as frick place built out of costco warehouses surrounded by brown people
Kaliningrad 4 nights is massive overkill, the whole city is incredibly dreary and has maybe ten buildings that are nice to look at. Instead add Tartu in Estonia, it's rather neat.
>Białystok 2 nights
If you go there because of Białowieża be warned that in spring/summer it will be probably swarmed with feral migrants from Belarus and border guards that will hunt them.
>Kalinigrad 4 nights
1 night in there is enough to get these soviet vibes, 3 more will only put you into depression. When Russian TV tried to make report on how good Królewiec is doing under the sanctions, they couldn't get even few minutes of nice views and they went to Polish town of Elbląg (pic related) to film it instead.
If even Russians think that Elbląg is nicer looking town than Królewiec, then you should listen to them.
Instead of spending so much time in Królewiec and Białystok you should consider:
>Olsztyn
You'll be there anyway. I has mixture of post-commie and ex-Prussian vibes - both of which are rough in their own different ways. 2 days is probably ok - 1 to get drunk in Browar Warmia and 1 to get sober.
>Elbląg
Mentioned above.
>Klaipeda
It has literally tens of kilometers of beaches. Nice place to charge summer vibe batteries before going to Królewiec, Białystok and Olsztyn.
yeah tbh helsinki homosexual city has barely anything to do t. finn