Itinerary · 8 days · 37 places
8 Days in the Baltics
Eight days through the three Baltic capitals: first Tallinn's medieval old town and green Kadriorg, then by coach to Riga for Art Nouveau and the Central Market, and finally on to Vilnius with Užupis, Baroque churches and the view from Gediminas Tower.
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Photo: Sergei Gussev · Pexels
The route on the map
The plan, day by day
Day 1Arriving in Tallinn's old town
Arrival in Tallinn
Hotel check-in
A base in the Vanalinn between Town Hall Square and the city wall, from where every lane of the old town is within walking distance.
Raekoja plats
Town Hall Square, with the only surviving Gothic town hall in Northern Europe and the Town Council Pharmacy, which has been trading on the same corner since 1422.
Kohtuotsa viewing platform
From the edge of Toompea hill you look over the red tiled roofs of the lower town to the ferry terminals in the harbour.
Evening: Telliskivi Loomelinnak
Former railway works with street art, bars and record shops that only really fills up after work.
Day 2Toompea & Hanseatic town
Alexander Nevsky Cathedral
Onion-domed Russian Orthodox church from 1900, its interior lit up by mosaics and an iconostasis in dark gold.
Patkuli viewing platform
View from the northern edge of Toompea over the towers of the city wall and the harbour, plus the long staircase down to the lower town.
City wall at Hellemann Tower
Walkable rampart on the medieval city wall, from where you look into the back courtyards of Müürivahe.
St Catherine's Passage
Narrow lane behind St Catherine's Church, where glassblowers and bookbinders let you watch them at work in their workshops.
Great Guild Hall
In the Gothic guild house, the Estonian History Museum tells the country's story from the Hanseatic League to the Singing Revolution.
Evening: Rotermanni kvartal
Converted brick warehouses between the old town and the harbour, lit up in the evening and full of wine bars.
Day 3Kadriorg, Song Festival Grounds & Pirita
Kadrioru palee
Baroque palace that Peter the Great had built for Catherine; Dutch and Italian masters now hang in its main hall.
Kumu Kunstimuuseum
Estonian art from manor-house portraits to Soviet modernism, shown in a curved building set into the limestone.
Lauluväljak
The Song Festival Grounds with their shell stage, where hundreds of thousands began the Singing Revolution in 1988.
Pirita Convent ruins
The open west façade of the 1436 Bridgettine convent stands roofless above the old cemetery by the river.
Pirita beach
Two kilometres of pale sand with views back across the bay to the towers of the old town.
Evening: Noblessner
Former submarine shipyard on the water, where the terraces along the quay wall are open in the evening.
Day 4Across the border to Riga
Onward to Riga
Hotel check-in
Rīgas Doms
The largest cathedral in the Baltics, with a 13th-century cloister and an organ heard in short afternoon concerts.
House of the Blackheads
The ornate gable of the merchants' brotherhood on Town Hall Square, rebuilt in 1999, with a banqueting hall and vaulted cellar inside.
St Peter's Church, Riga
A lift up to 72 metres, from where you see the old town roofs, the Daugava and the towers of the Academy all at once.
Evening: Līvu laukums
Livu Square with its colourful guild houses, where street music and terraces carry on until late in the evening.
Day 5Art Nouveau & Central Market
Freedom Monument
Milda holds three stars aloft over Riga; on the hour the guard of honour changes beneath her.
Alberta iela
A whole street of Art Nouveau by Mikhail Eisenstein, with masks, sphinxes and peacocks above the doorways.
Riga Central Market
Five old Zeppelin hangars full of smoked fish, sauerkraut and black bread — you can smell the fish hall from outside.
Latvian Academy of Sciences
Stalinist high-rise with an open viewing terrace on the 17th floor above the market and the Moscow Suburb.
Spīķeri quarter
19th-century brick warehouses by the canal, now galleries, a concert hall and the promenade along the Daugava.
Evening: Bastejkalna parks
Park hill by the city canal, lit up in the evening, with memorial stones for the victims of the 1991 barricades.
Day 6On to Vilnius
Onward to Vilnius
Hotel check-in
Gate of Dawn
The last surviving city gate, with the silver-clad icon of the Virgin Mary before which people kneel in the street.
Pilies gatvė
The old Castle Street with amber stalls, courtyards and the narrow lane leading to the university.
Cathedral of St Stanislaus
White temple-like building on Cathedral Square with the Baroque Chapel of St Casimir and the free-standing bell tower.
Evening: Vilniaus gatvė
Pedestrian street with bars and small stages, the liveliest strip of the new town on balmy evenings.
Day 7Baroque, Castle Hill & Užupis
Gediminas Tower
Red-brick stump of the Upper Castle, from whose platform you overlook the old town, the Neris and the surrounding hills.
Užupis
Artists' quarter across the Vilnia with the angel on its column and the constitution in forty languages on a house wall.
St Anne's Church
Brick Gothic made from 33 different brick shapes, with the Bernardine monastery and its quiet courtyard beside it.
Vilnius University
Thirteen rambling courtyards from four centuries, plus the library's fresco hall and the bell tower of St John's Church.
Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights
In the former KGB building, the cells and the execution chamber in the basement have been preserved unchanged.
Evening: Stiklių gatvė
Narrow lanes of the old glassmakers' quarter, lit in the evening by lanterns and the windows of the wine cellars.
Day 8Market hall and farewell
Halės turgus
Vilnius' oldest market hall, from 1906, with farmhouse cheese, smoked eel and stalls selling kvass and šakotis.
Church of St Peter and St Paul
Behind the plain façade, more than two thousand white stucco figures fill the vaults — the most lavish Baroque interior in Lithuania.
Departure from Vilnius
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