The decision to visit the Baltic area was purely corona-based. As I had to skip/cancel already tours to Sri Lanka and Scotland earlier that year, and pictures of crowded German coastal areas were not appealing, the Baltics seemed to be a rather safe option in these difficult times. Of course, I had Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia on my bucket list, but not for the near future. Well, Corona changed a lot.
As usual, I did a thorough research, and besides a reasonable price (40-80€ for a double), I was especially looking this time for included private parking and easy walking distance to the old city centres. Except of two choices, I can absolutely recommend all of the accommodations. The B&B Wetzlar (too far away from the centre and smelly) and Aika Guesthouse (clean but small and a bit worn for the price) I would not book again. Especially for Nida, book early in August, as Aika was one of the few choices left. The ones in Kaunas and Paslek were spontaneously booked on the way. Cheap, clean and perfectly OK for a night.
We only have a half day in Wroclaw, so we concentrate on the old part of town. Fortunately, our hotel is just a short stroll away. The old town is impressive and the old town square is a gem. Not only because of the old colourful houses but also because of the atmosphere with street performers, strolling people, restaurants and bars. Plenty of park benches invite to soak up the atmosphere.
Not all houses are beautiful and colourful...
Wroclaw's dwarfs are a tourist attraction. Around 400 can be found in the city and it's big fun to go for a dwarf hunt. Their number is continually on the rise.
Street scenes
The market place in the blue hour.
The next morning, we drive in three hours to Warsaw, the biggest city in Poland. Fortunately it's Sunday, so traffic isn't a big issue.
Especially nice on Sunday is that the main road in the city center Nowy Swiat is closed for traffic, which makes the stroll towards the old city centre very pleasant.
Today, we have a six-hours drive and 460 km to Vilnius in Lithuania before us. Only the short section to Ostrow is by highway. The area is quite flat, and we pass endless fields of farmland, from time to time interrupted by pockets of forest.
Only 30 minutes away from Vilnius lies Trakai Castle, a fortress dating back to the 14th century. After falling into disrepair, it was rebuilt in 1961 and now is a major tourist attraction. Definitely worth a visit. We spend around 1.5 hours there.
After a long day of driving we finally reach Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. A very relaxed city with plenty of green areas and coffee shops.
A little curiosity in Vilnius is Uzupis, a neighbourhood with many artists and a laissez-faire atmosphere that declared itself an independent republic similar to Freetown Christiana in Copenhagen. It has its own flag, a prime minister, a cabinet and of course a constitution. The latter is presented in many different languages in one of the streets and definitely worth to read.
Typical local food. Cold beetroot soup with dill and meat-filled potato dumplings.
The Curonian Spit is an almost 100 km long thin sand dune spit separating the Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea. Roughly half of it belongs to the Kaliningrad oblast. Honestly I did not know about this area, but following my guidebook „a must do while visiting Lithuania", I booked two nights in Nida, the biggest and arguably the nicest village on the Split. Not so easy, as the area is a holiday hot spot in summer time not only for foreign but also local tourists. Despite plenty of accommodations, very few were available and they are significantly more expensive than even in Vilnius.
On the way to Nida we stop in Juodkrante for lunch and visit of the so called „Hexenhügel" (Hill of witches). A 45 min hike with plenty of wood carvings.
Another stop before Nida is the Nagliu Nature Reserve with its grey dunes. Shifting sands have forced villagers in the mid-19th century to flee to the villages on the east coast, when their houses became buried under the sand. Nowadays, the dunes are covered partly with vegetation and have stopped moving. There is an entrance fee of a few Euros. Usually no big deal, but considering that we had already paid 30 € entrance fee (high season) to the spit a few hours before, kinda cheeky.
Nida has a beautiful collection of old fisherman houses.
A stroll from the village along the harbour brings us to the top of the Parnidis Dune - the biggest on the Spit. The view and scenery in the soft golden afternoon light is gorgeous. The border to Kaliningrad is just 2 km away, and although it’s a green border it’s not advised to cross it this way, as for sure it’s closely observed.
On the way back, we enjoy the soft pinkish after sunset glow.
In 1844, weathervanes were introduced in order to better control the fishing in the area. Each ship had to carry one to identify the area it was coming from. Of course not in use anymore, they are beautifully on display along the promenade nowadays.
Nida, along the promenade.
Thomas Mann enjoyed the summer times in Nida from 1930 to 1932. His summer house is a museum nowadays and worth a visit if you are a bit into literature or at least to enjoy the view.
Amber is the surviving resin of ancient trees which over millions of years had been covered by sediments and compressed by rock movement and glaciers. The biggest deposits worldwide can be found in the Baltic. To learn more about the Baltic Gold, as it's often referred to, we visit the small but interesting amber gallery museum in Nida. I'm mostly surprised to learn that amber does come in diverse colours and various degrees of transparency from almost black to white. Some pieces on display contain insects which are at least 45 million years old. Amazing!!!
Beach life on the Baltic Sea with plenty of free space. Only a 20 minutes walk away from Nida.
After two nights in Nida, we leave the Coronian Spit. A long day drive to Riga awaits us.
We make a short detour to the Cold War Museum. Four SS-4 nuclear rockets (same type that caused the Cuba crisis) were waiting in this inconspicuous area in their silos to erase their predefined targets in Western Europe. Of course, today they are long gone, but exploring the area above and especially below the ground creates a kind of goose skin feeling. The exhibitions are well made and surprisingly informative. Definitely worth a detour.
We see plenty of storks on the way, one time we even count more then ten on just one field. We guess the freshly harvested field has uncovered a kind of free all-you-can-eat buffet for storks. Very tempting.
Another not-to-miss stop on the way to Riga is the hill off crosses. For some people, an important Christian pilgrimage place - for others, a bizarre facet of religious faith. Whatever your perception is, it's definitely worth a visit, and considering the enormous size of the parking lot, many people obviously agree.
Riga surprised me. With more than 600.000 inhabitants, it's the biggest city in the Baltics, but it has a very laid-back atmosphere. Traffic is very limited, there are many green parks, everything it tidy and clean, there are no big crowds, not even in the old city. Maybe this is because Riga does not really offer specific outstanding highlights, it's more the whole inner city which is a highlight on its own, especially with its fascinating Art Nouveau and 19th century wooden architecture, that makes walking around so fascinating. Every corner brings something new. A somewhat shabby wooden two-storey building, cornered by two beautiful restored six-storey Art Nouveau buildings, followed by another - this time beautifully restored - wooden building, next to an Art Nouveau building in disrepair is not an unusual sight. An inviting bar, cafe, restaurant or interesting shop is never far away. Not difficult to say that I fell in love. Riga - I will come back.
Riga is old, but it's most marvelled building, the House of Black Heads, is not, or in the words of our young knowledgable and entertaining tour-guide from the free walking tour we joined: " If you want to see something old here on the square, look at me, not at the building." In fact, it was built in 1999 as a complete replica of the former building which had been destroyed in the 1940th.
Riga is full of Art Nouveau architecture, the area with the most striking examples is around the Alberta Iela.
Just one hour from Riga by car starts the oldest and biggest National Park in Latvia, Gauja, named after the river that runs through the park.
We have a short stop in Sigulda, to visit the castle. The castle compound offers a nice view towards Treyden castle on the other side of the river. With the red brick walls rising right from the green forest, an impressive sight.
Not far from Sigulda lies Cesis, right in the middle of the Gauja NP. To make use of our camping gear, we decided to camp at ApalkaIns a few kilometres outside town, which lies on an extremely idyllic lake. One of the most beautiful campsites I‘ve been so far, perfectly managed with lots of space, clean facilities and great swimming in the lake. Highly recommended.
The campground also offers canoe tours on the Gauja, so we opt for a 17 km tour starting from Cecis to Ligatne, which should take us a bit more than three hours. The area is beautiful, but as the Gauja is flowing slowly, there is quite some paddling involved, so we are glad that we already started at 8:00 hrs to avoid the biggest heat of the day.
After three hours on the river, we are picked up, after a short call, from the river crossing ferry station at Ligatne and drive back to the campground. Very uncomplicated and perfectly organised.
After a lazy lunch time on the campground, we decide in the afternoon to go for a nature walk. The Cirulisi Nature Trails start from the Camping Zagarkains and are very idyllic.
The first thing that comes to our mind crossing the border is that all the village names suddenly sound Finnish, the second thing is that there are far less speed controls than in neighbouring Latvia. It takes us 2.5 hours from Cesis to reach the ferry to Saaremaa.
The ferry takes only 28 minutes and goes every 30 minutes. Actually, there are two ferries in operation. Tickets can be booked in advance but even in August it is no problem just to show up.
Saaremaa is one of the biggest islands in the Baltic Sea, with around 90 km from North to South as well as from East to West. Kuressaare (Arensburg) is the biggest city, with 16,000 inhabitants.
In the next two days we, we will visit some of the "must do"s on the island.
In Orissaare we stop for a football field which is a local curiosity. A tree in the middle of the field withstood several trials of removal, even by a tractor and was finally left there, forcing the teams to play around it. Unfortunately, no football match was going on during our visit.
Next and not far away, we visit the ruins of the old Soneburg castle. The ruins are not quite spectacular, but we enjoy an idyllic lunch nap in the grass next to the sea.
Dating back to the 14th century, Karja church lies in an idyllic surrounding and has some nicely preserved gothic and medieval structures. Donations are collected in an original heavy wooden medieval donation box.
Whoever wants to see how a windmill works, Angla Windmill Park is a good place to learn about this. There are five windmills and two can be visited from the inside. There is also some farm equipment on display.
Finally, we arrive at Kuressaare, the attractive capital of Saaremaa. The Ekesparre Boutique Hotel is in a wonderful historic building, right next to the castle. It's our homebase for the next two nights.
Located in an old windmill, Saaremma Veski in an institution in Kuressaare when it comes to local cuisine. Of course it's quite touristic, but the location is beautiful and the staff is friendly - and our food is fantastic.
The next morning, we drive to the southern tip to visit the Sörve lighthouse, a very scenic place which will become my favourite spot on the island.
Halfway between Kuressaare and the Sörve lighthouse are some of the best beaches on Saaremaa.
From the South, we drive all the way up to the North of Saaremaa to the Panga Cliff. There is a nice picnic area and some walking paths but the cliff is not very spectacular and it's hard to see standing on top of it. During the itinerary planning, I read something about a rope to go down, but can't find anything. Maybe it was removed due to safety concerns.
After our second night in Kuresaaree, we make our way to Tallinn, but not without visiting the Kaali meteorite crater, our last stop on the island. Interestingly, different studies came to very diverse findings about the impact date, ranging from 500 years ago to 7,600 years, the impact velocity 36,0000 to 72,000 km/h and the mass with 20 to 80 metric tonnes. At least they all agree that it was a meterorite.
Tallinn shows us several faces during our short stay. Of course, the charming medieval old town face many tourists come for, but it also has a posh and modern city centre face and a surprisingly big ugly suburb face with plenty of old grey monotone multi-unit concrete buildings from the Soviet time.
The city feels rather empty, no wonder when in normal times on average two cruise ships visit the city every day. Two Aida ships actually anchor close to the harbour, but of course they are not operating.
We wanted to join a Free Walking Tour but it was cancelled, so the tourist information suggested another free tour "Tales of Reval", starting half an hour later but with another concept. Gee, are we lucky!
The typical Free Waking Tours will give you a lot of information in a generally entertaining way. The medieval tour is with less facts but presented in an extraordinary entertaining way about the medieval times in Reval (the old Name of Tallinn). The guide, in our case Gregorius, comes in medieval clothes, speaks and behaves in this way and involves the group (only four of us) in the whole story telling on the way through the old city with incredible passion. At the end, we find it much easier to remember the content we heard this way, brilliant and worth a generous tip.
Additional to the great tour we are lucky that this weekend is a kind of medieval festival which perfectly adds to the general atmosphere in the city.
A restaurant I can highly recommend is Moons, which is serving modern interpreted Russian food for a really good value in a nice atmosphere. We loved it so much that we visited it twice during our stay. It’s just outside the old town and not one of the typical tourist places. Book ahead, on Thursday it was already very busy when we arrived, Friday we even couldn't get a table by showing up, so we reserved one for Saturday, which was a good idea.
Today, we make a day-tour to the Lahemaa National Park, first starting with Palmse, a beautiful manor house from the 17th century and fascinating inside as well as from the outside. Not cheap for 9 €, but worth it. Including a stroll through the garden and forest, it's easy to spend 2-3 hours.
What Spotify is today, was in the 19th century this music box, playing 24 songs controlled by huge cylinders. Ok, it sound a bit odd, agreed!
Next, we stop for the Oandu Nature Walk, a beautiful four km walk in the woods. First, the path follows flatly a conifer forest, typically for the area. The whole ground is covered with blueberry. Then, it goes down a bit, the path becomes a boardwalk on muddy ground running now through a wild and thick forest with a completely different character. It's stunningly beautiful. After around an hour, steps lead upwards, and on top the tamed forest awaits us again. Highly recommended!
Our next stop is Altja, a small village with some scenic wooden fisherman cabins right on the sea, which can be reached by a 15-minutes walk.
Rather unusual is the last stop of our tour today, an old submarine base from the cold war period with a kinda morbid charm. It was built in 1953 and used for demagnetisation of submarines, making them less detectable. There is a small entrance fee, but otherwise no modern infrastructure (albeit planned for the future). Fun to explore.
Helsinki had never been a city that drew my attention to it, but only 2.5h (one-way) and 31 € (return) away from Tallinn by ferry, it is too tempting to just ignore it. Additionally, our flat is only 900 m away from the ferry terminal. I drop off my girlfriend early in the morning at the airport for her flight back to Germany, then I take the first ferry at 7:00 hrs which I booked the day before, together with the return ferry at 19:00 hrs. There are several ferry companies, but Viking has the advantage that it uses the south harbour in Helsinki which is only a short walk to the city centre.
In Helsinki I take a free walking tour. Compared to the Tallinn tour it is a bit more informative, but less funny. Nevertheless, beside many other things I learn that Finns drink the most coffee in the world (4-5 cups on average per day), eat the most ice-cream in Europe (14 litres per person and year), have more saunas than cars in the country, are the happiest people in the world and love salty liquorice (uuuugh!). At least the ice-cream with liquorice I tried was not that bad, actually.
Helsinki has plenty of bike paths, so a rental bike or a e-scooter is a great way to explore the city in a day.
The majestic Helsinki Dome
The Uspenski Cathedrale
Some city impressions
The Temppeliaukio Church
After a long day with perfect weather in Helsinki, I take the 19:00 hrs ferry back to Tallinn.
Finally, it's time to start my return trip, but of course not without some more stops on the way. A very long day-drive of eight hours brings me to Kaunas. I only go into the city centre for dinner and a short walk around. Not much time, but nevertheless the old town is quite charming.
My idea was to visit the historic Wolfsschanze (Wolf Lair), Hitler's Headquarter at the east front in WW2 and to book spontaneously an accommodation at one of the lakes. I expected this holiday region very busy in August but reality exceeds my worst dreams. Approaching the Wolf Lair, Google already indicated the upcoming nightmare with a deep red traffic indicator and indeed already 1.5 km before the entrance I find myself in a hardly moving queue of cars. Parking and walking is impossible on the narrow street. I imagined the upcoming hustle and bustle between the bunkers after annoying queuing up and decide this is not mine at such a place, so I turn and I'm not the only one having this idea.
At the next possibility, I stop and look for an accommodation on booking.com. What shall I say, despite plenty of options, the whole huge area is solidly booked and the very few choices left are either quite expensive or extremely badly reviewed. Looking for a campsite is also not appealing, considering the grey and light rainy weather. Finally and frustrated, I decide to skip the area, to drive two more hours and to book an accommodation close to the Elblag Canal with the famous inclined planes (ships travel partly over land) and Malbork Castle, which I plan to visit the following day.
The famous inclined planes at the Elblag Canal.
This 13th century Teutonic castle is the biggest mudbrick building in the world and a must-visit while in the area. It's popular, so arrive best at 9:00 hrs and buy your ticket online the day before. At least in July/August. The guided audio walk is fabulous and entertaining and automatically recognises your location. Plan minimum three hours. Parking directly at the castle is expensive, better park in the city, e.g. here (2 €/day) and walk 5 minutes.
This old harbour city is so full of history that it would be enough for three cities. It was part of Prussia, Germany and Poland. It had a glorious golden time as part of the Hanse and became one of the richest cities during that time. Here it was where the Second World War started and the city suffered like few others from the Nazi regime and later when the Russians captured the city, taking revenge on the German cruelties in the Russian cities.
Lech Walesa and the Solidarność movement starting in Gdansk are considered as the nucleus that finally lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Schopenhauer, Grass and Fahrenheit were other famous citizens of Gdansk. Just to mention few facts. So worth to join a free walking tour to hear more about it.
Despite its severe damages during WW2, Gdansk has a very charming old town and also new buildings blend in. So it was a joy to walk around, especially as the city felt busy but not overcrowded with tourists as it usually is, according to Filip, our guide. He guessed the number of tourist down by 80% due to Corona.
Don’t miss the modern and excellent WW2 museum. It’s huge, plan minimum 3-4 hours, time just passes by in there.
Beautiful blue hour atmosphere
Well, what started as a compromise turned out to be an interesting and diversified holiday trip. Of course, the landscape is not so exotic for German eyes. The people, albeit friendly, are a bit reserved with foreigners, as it’s typical in northern countries. Food is solid but will not offer big surprises. Well, all of this can be seen as an advantage or disadvantage, depending on your point of view. In fact, it was quite a relaxed holiday, infrastructure was surprisingly good, everything worked perfectly out, overland traffic was low, not one place felt overly crowded (except the Masurian Lake District), and the summer temperature was quite bearable. And of course: lot of picture opportunities. So at the end I was glad that we did it.
© 2026 Beyond All Maps - Portraits of our Planet by Thorsten Mehret