Baltic States 2023
Flying in and out of Helsinki, this trip took us to Tallinn (Estonia), Riga (Latvia), Vilnius (Lithuania), and Warsaw and Krakow (Poland.) This trip isn’t as archaeology-heavy as other trips, but does have some excellent (and awful) recent history. And there’s more ancient history here than we tend to think.
Helsinki
I think what I really learned about Helsinki on this trip is that Milford, CT is arguably older than Helsinki, so that’s fun. It’s a great city, though very expensive in comparison to the rest of the trip. It’s worth it to stay closer to the waterfront, since that’s where a lot of the fun is. Unfortunately the weather was very rainy on this portion of the trip so it wasn’t as much fun as it would have been otherwise. It’s a lovely city, though, and nice to visit.
Tips and Tricks
Helsinki isn’t as packed a place to visit as other places we visited on this trip. But there’s still a lot to do.
We had three main stops in Helsinki. The first was the National Museum of Finland. It was a little hard to get to, and where our taxi dropped us off was under construction, so it was a little tricky to get in. It is covered by the Helsinki card. It is a very nice museum. It really follows my principal of quality over quantity for the exhibits. The lower level has some really well displayed and explained artifacts from the ancient history of Finland in general and the area around Helsinki in specific. In the upper levels, there were exhibits that had a lot about the history of Finland and Helsinki. One of my favorite exhibits had a video showing the development of Helsinki over time, including the fact that it really only became a large city after 1860. A really interesting and well organized museum. I highly recommend it.
The second main stop we made was at the Zoo! Fun fact - you can take a boat over to the island/peninsula on which the zoo was located. I had done this the last time I’d been in Helsinki, and it was really fun. This time, we were the only ones on the boat, so that was really nice. It’s a nice, easy boat ride over. The zoo itself is quite nicely put together. The habitats are really large and well-designed. The variety of animals was excellent with a diversity of animals from all over the world, including Finland. A great place to visit if you are a zoo person.
The third main stop we made was at Suomenlinna. This is definitely a high priority place to visit. It’s a UNESCO world heritage site and was an island fortification developed over about 200 years. The boat ride over was quite comfortable. The island is larger than I remembered. It’s actually multiple islands that are connected by bridges. It’s very interesting to visit and the museum is a key place to stop to get a better understanding of the history and development of the space over time. It was initially established in 1748 by the Swedes when they had control over Finland, and was further expanded by the Russians when they were in power from 1808-1918. It is still currently in use as a military academy and has people who live there full time. There are a number of restaurants on the island, so it’s a great place to hit around lunch time.
On this trip, we also popped by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) because I was traveling with my mother and I and we are Hazard Communication nerds in our daily lives. We also visited the Helsinki Cathedral which is quite impressively large, though not very heavily decorated. Be very careful walking up the stairs in the rain, those steps can be pretty slippery. We also visited the Uspenski Cathedral which is a short walk from the main cathedral. It is more elaborate inside and has some incredible art. Definitely worth visit. The last place we visited was the Helsinki city museum which was an interesting visit. It’s not a very elaborate museum, but it has a cute section with a reproduction of the city back at 100 years ago. There was an interesting exhibit on the upper level about Afro-Finns which I think is an interesting and important topic that I think was well covered.
We took the ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn. It’s a comfortable ride, and worth springing for the business class lounge since the amount of food and drink you can consume covers the extra fee!
Some recommendations for Helsinki. First, we stayed at the U14 Hotel which is a lovely hotel and in an excellent location. Our first night, we went to Ravintola Purpur - a Georgian restaurant. That ended up being a weird theme of this trip - Georgian restaurants. The food and wine were incredible and the service was excellent. Highly recommended!
For lunch when we were on Suomenlinna we went to the Bastion Bistro. I had the Finnish Salmon soup, with archipelago bread. This may be one of my favorite dishes on that trip. It had been very rainy day and the soup was so warm and comforting. The salmon wasn’t overpowering. Also, the archipelago bread was our favorite on the whole trip. It was amazing.
I managed to find a restaurant with reindeer for our last night, since I love reindeer steak. If you like red meat, it’s a nice lean red meat. You can find it at a number of restaurants in Helsinki, though we went to Stefan’s Steakhouse. Their menu was actually pretty diverse considering that it was a steakhouse, and the reindeer was excellent.
Last note - stop by Kappeli for a drink. It’s an historical building and is on the esplanade. It’s really lovely and fun to visit.
The drink for this portion of the trip was one I was introduced to on my first trip to Helsinki. 1:1 Cloudberry liquor and vodka. I initially had it as a shot, but it is really lovely over ice. A little sweet but not overwhelming. When I asked for it at bars, they seem surprised, but I swear it was a Finn who recommended it to me. Either way, enjoy!
Tallinn
Tallinn is up there in our group as favorite place to visit on this trip. Many people love Tallinn, and for good reason. It is really interesting, has great history, lots to see, and is a great place to wander around. It’s not a bad trip there from Helsinki, and a lot of people do it as a daytrip. I’m glad we stayed there, though, because it was fun to be able to wander around at night. There’s tonnes to see and do and the city does have such charm. Well worth the visit.
Tips and Tricks
There is so much to do in Tallinn. We picked up the Tallinn card which was great and covered many of the museums we chose to visit. We could easily have spent another day in the city, but if you’ve been reading this blog for a bit, you know that we always only have a few days in any given place. I hope to start doing that less, but there’s so much world to see.
So, what is there to see in Tallinn that’s worth it? Okay, the city walls and towers are probably one of the first things to see. There are a lot of them, and if you’re staying in the city, they are hard to miss. Tallinn has an upper and lower city, and much of what you want to visit is in the lower town.
For museums, we started at the Tallinn city museum. This museum is a great overview of the history of the city and has some great artifacts. Tallinn is medieval and has quite a bit of remaining medieval architecture. The city museum has a medieval cellar so that was interesting to visit.
Another excellent museum to visit is the Tallinn town hall. It was been extensively restored and is really beautiful. They do still have some remnants of the medieval decoration, which is really fun (and was more exciting before we’d gone to Torun, but is still worth a visit if you’re a huge history nerd like I am.) The work they’ve done on making it really feel like you are the city hall as it existed back in the 1200s is very impressive. And go up into the attic to see more about the process of restoration. Very nice.
The Kiek in de Kök Museum and Bastion Tunnels is really impressive. I thought I could do a quick pop in but man, this is so much bigger than you’d know. There are at least three towers that you can go up, plus all the walls that you can walk through that connects them. And the Bastion Tunnels are impressive and quite interesting. The museum covers the historic uses of the towers and the tunnels, which had various uses over time. Initially often used for storage, they ended up being used during various wars as bomb shelters. I wish I had spent more time here since it is really an excellent museum and worth the visit.
The Maritime Museum is actually very well organized, though I had a mixed experience. I think one of the issues is that I arrive about 4 minutes before my Tallinn Card expired, but the person checking me in was talking to the people in front of me and so I didn’t get in until 1 minute afterwards. So that put me in a bad mood. But the museum was fine. The exhibit about the shipwreck that had been uncovered was excellent, but the rest of the museum had just general maritime history. It was well-presented and probably more exciting or interesting if you haven’t been to a bunch of Maritime Museums. I’m not meaning to be negative about it, but I think it was the museum I’d say you can skip unless you really love maritime history or haven’t been to a dozen maritime museums in your lifetime.
For churches, the most famous is probably Alexander Nevski Cathedral. It is high up in the upper city and is quite lovely. However, it is also a point of contention in the city itself. But I’ll get back to that (put a pin in that as the kids say.) It is lovely and worth visiting and going inside. Also in the upper city is St Mary’s Church. This is less extravagant than Alexander Nevski but it has better dead people. Lots of graves under the floor and in the walls and so I really enjoyed the visit. The last of the main churches that we visited is now a museum. It is the Niguliste Museum which is in St. Nichols’ church. It has some fabulous art, and you can take an elevator up to the top of the tower and get some amazing views. It also has what remains of a huge medieval version of Dance of Death, a common theme in medieval art about how death comes to all. This is definitely a church/museum that is worth visiting.
We had a Tour By Locals tour with Kadi Aarpuu entitled “Legends of Tallinn.” It was an absolutely wonderful tour and Kadi was fantastic. She’s super knowledgeable about the history and told us a lot of stories about the city. We really enjoyed our tour with her and I highly recommend her as guide.
We stayed at the Telegraaf hotel which is in an excellent location and had excellent rooms. The staff were incredibly friendly and helpful. They had a nice outdoor space where we had drinks the first day because the weather was nice enough. The breakfast was quite good. I definitely recommend this as a great place to stay in Tallinn.
For places for food and drinks, I have a few recommendations. We did our first dinner at the Peppersack. It’s medieval-themed and was fine. The food was quite good and the beer was excellent. It was a bit touristy and the service was a little slow, but in general it was a nice visit and a good restaurant. The second night we had dinner at Rataskaevu 16 (named that because that is the restaurant’s address.) It was phenomenal, though we did have to wait a bit for the table. But then, it’s considered by many to be the best restaurant in Tallinn, so what can you do. The food was excellent as was the service. We had a chance to try Estonian wine (they do have a grape varietal that can survive that far north, and we tried local wine in most of the other countries we visited.) I highly recommend it if you can get in.
I also highly recommend Restauran Domenic for wine. They have an incredibly extensive wine list, so it’s a great place to visit. Don’t waste your time with the Wine Library, it’s list is more local free mini library than New York City library.
Parnu
Parnu wasn’t initially on our list of places to go but it was offered by Daytrip (highly recommend this service that drives you from place to place along with side trips and we used it twice on this trip and loved both voyages.) It’s a small town right on the seaside and it has a really cute small old city center along with a tower dating back to the 15th century. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to go in, but it’s very nicely preserved/restored. The town has some very pretty parks and churches. They also have a really nice park that includes the gate from their medieval wall. Worth a short visit. There’s also a nice waterfront with great beaches, so probably great for the six weeks per year where it’s beach weather in Estonia.
Riga
Oh Riga. So cute. A real charmer of a city and just such a surprise. Not as surprising as Vilnius (pin in that) but I guess since I hadn’t really known what to expect, it really was one of the many times that I visited a place on this trip and hope I can get back and spend more time there.
Riga has an amazing historic downtown. They had taken down the city walls a few hundred years ago and turned that space into a park and canal. The park around the canal is amazing and so much fun to walk through. The art deco portion of the city has amazing architecture (I had a hard time not taking a picture of literally every building.) And the medieval center has great parks and restaurants and had so much live music. Highly, highly recommend visiting Riga.
Tips and Tricks
So, first tip - do the canal cruise. When we got into the city, we wandered over to the park that we had seen driving in and saw the canal cruises. We hadn’t scheduled it, but they tend to leave every hour and are a great way to see the city and also just nice to see the canal. Highly recommend.
Riga doesn’t have as many museums as other cities, but it still had a lot to see. We went on a Tours By Locals guided tour with Erlens Gadzans who was fantastic. He had a lot of information about the history of the city. I think my favorite story is the story of the time that Napoleon invaded Riga. Or rather didn’t.
So, Napoleon, near Riga. At that point, there are two parts of Riga - the stone center of the city on the inside of the walls, and the wooden suburbs of the city outside the city wall. If someone attacks, you can burn down the suburbs to give a clear visibility from the city to the attacking army. The general somehow gets the idea that Napoleon is about to attack, so orders the suburbs burned down. Next day, Napoleon moves on without even noticing Riga. Woops.
So, the best places to visit in Riga are the Cathedral, St. Peter’s Church, and I guess the Museum of History Riga. That being said, the history museum is very old-fashioned and wasn’t really that informative. The churches are quite lovely and worth visiting, and you can take an elevator up to the top of the Cathedral to see the view. It is really impressive. Riga is more a city of vibes.
We stayed at the Pullman Riga and it was an excellent location. When we got in, we stopped at Eqqus Restorans for dumplings. They were excellent, and the restaurant had a surprisingly good wine list. We had a bit of trouble finding restaurants in Riga mostly due to some weird timing issues. We went to Kolonade. It’s in the park and was quite nice, with an excellent wine list. For the second night, we went to Gutenbergs, and that was fantastic. The view was incredible and the food was quite delicious.
Bauska and Trakai Island Castle
These were two castles that we were able to stop at on our way from Riga to Vilnius. The first, Bauska Castle, is about an hour south of Riga. There are ruins of an older building, but the main castle was restored in the 1800s. The older castle dates back to the 1400s and was a central meeting point for the Livonian order when it was the home of the head of the Livonian order. It fell during war a couple times, and is now a very nice and informative museum.
Trakai Island Castle is a castle in the town of Trakai, in Lake Galve. This is such a cute town, with lots of restaurants, shops, and water activities like boat rides. I could see actually spending a weekend here if we had more time. The castle itself was founded in the late 1300s. It was a location that was the site of a number of battles during a struggle between factions struggling for the title of Grand Duke of Lithuania. It ended up as a home in the 1400s after it lost military significance, and at times served as a royal summer residence. After a period of abandonment, it was eventually restored starting in 1947. It also has a number of displays about the history of the castle. It is lovely and well worth the visit.
Vilnius
I feel like Vilnius was the biggest surprise of the trip. There isn’t a ton of information out there about visiting Vilnius, but it turns out that they have a number of really fantastic spots to visit, including an incredible museum in the former Ducal palace that gives a fantastic overview of the history of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania and how important Vilnius was in the whole history. They have a very nice archaeology museum as well. I wish we had more time there.
Tips and Tricks
This is the one place where I really regret how I organized it. It was hard finding information about where to visit and so we ended up spending time going to a museum that was not fantastic and not having nearly enough time at the best museum in Vilnius.
To start, we stayed at the Arti hotel. The Artis was quite lovely and was in a really nice location between the Cathedral area and that part of Vilnius and the other old town. I really recommend it.
The best museums to visit are the Vilnius archaeology museum which had some lovely artifacts and are really well-designed and well-organized upper level that shows artifacts of the various ethnic groups that lived in Lithuania. It gave some interesting information about the similarities and differences in clothing, culture, and burial practices. In the lower section, they have a really nice exhibit about the early history of the area. One thing I really liked about it was that it would have replicas of the artifacts that you could touch. They also had a special exhibit about the importance of leaving archaeological finds in place and reporting them, and not buying things on the black market which was really well done.
The other really fantastic museum was the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania. There are a number of paths you can take, the two that we tried to get through were the archaeological history of the palace that gets you down into the stone foundations of the building, and then the ducal palace section which had the later-built and more recently used rooms of the building. It is a huge museum and was absolutely fascinating. It was really interesting learning the history there and they proceeding to Poland where we learned about the history from the other side. Definitely visit this museum and make sure you give yourself a few hours.
The other spot to definitely visit in Vilnius is the Gediminas Castle Tower. The most fun way to visit is by taking the funicular up to the tower. There is a small museum in the tower that was interesting, and you can go up to the top of the tower to get some amazing views of the city. Well worth a visit.
My restaurant recommendation is Lokys. It had traditional Lithuanian cuisine, and I had the beaver stew. It was a lovely restaurant, with their outside portion being in this nice courtyard. They had an excellent menu and a great wine list. Fantastic service as well.
Warsaw
Although it was seriously damaged in the 20th century, there is much to see in Warsaw. It’s an interesting city with a lot to see. We stayed out near the Palace of Culture and Science, which is in the newer part of Warsaw, but it wasn’t too bad to walk to the old section of the city. There’s a lot to see there and the city was really lovely to visit.
Tips and Tricks
We stayed at the Westin Warsaw, which is near the Palace of Arts and Sciences. It is a really nice hotel and has some lovely views from the upper levels. There is a part of me that wishes we had stayed more in the older city, but I really can’t complain about the hotel.
Wandering in the old city is an absolute must when visiting Warsaw. I highly recommend the Museum of Warsaw. This very interesting museum is built into interconnected buildings. It is a very well-organized museum with fantastic exhibits that go over the history of the city and how it changed over the years. I really like the section in the cellar with the oldest archaeology in the museum. They have an excellent balance of focus on a few important artifacts, but then including a pile of other artifacts to indicate the amount that was found. I would say this is the best museum in Warsaw.
From the Museum of Warsaw, you can have lunch there in the old town square. It’s a short walk from there to the Warsaw Barbican which is part of the old city walls. From there, if you continue outside the old city, you can get to the Warsaw Uprising Monument, which is in a square that has a Chopin bench and the Court of Appeal in Warsaw which is quite an architectural wonder.
For churches to visit, Bazylika Archikatedralna w Warszawie p.w. Męczeństwa św. Jana Chrzciciela is the largest and most beautiful. But if you want to visit famous dead people, you can see the spot where Chopin’s heart is interred at the Holy Cross Church.
The other highlight of our time in Warsaw was the visit to the Warsaw zoo. It’s across the river and so we had to get a ride over there, but it is worth it. It’s a huge area and has some fantastic animals and really well-organized and designed enclosures. It was a very nice afternoon wandering around the zoo and if you have free time, I recommend it.
One more thing that you may want to visit is the Palace of Arts and Culture. It’s an amazing complex and is incredibly tall. You can take the elevator up to the top and see the entire city and even out into the countryside. It’s really worth the trip up.
For restaurant recommendations, I have two. One is Restauracja Murzynek Warszawa that has their outdoor dining area in old town square. The food was excellent and the service was quite friendly. The other restaurant I want to recommend was Street Restauracja, which was near our hotel. Very casual but excellent and they have a really nice outdoor dining area.
We took the train from Warsaw to Krakow, and I have a word of warning. If you are taking the train down to Krakow, it may seem easier to go from Zachodnia Station. But when we were there it was under major construction and it was hard to get to, had little to no services, and was a bit of a disaster. Don’t go out of here if you can avoid it until probably 2025 or 2026. I’m sure it will be amazing when it’s done, but now is not that time.
Torun
I found Torun on a list of the “Most Beautiful Cities in Europe” and they were right. The whole old city is a Unesco World Heritage Site. It has amazingly well-preserved medieval art in a number of churches, and the ruins of a Teutonic Order castle. There’s also a really cute “Leaning Tower” and a beautiful central square with amazing architecture and a lot of nice restaurants. My original plan was to take the train in and out, but there aren’t a lot of options for trains, so we ended up using DayTrip to get a driver who took us there and then back to take the train down to Krakow. It is an excellent 4-5 hours to see most of the city. And don’t miss the paintings at St. James Church and St John’s Cathedral. It is really interesting and the preservation of this art is so rare.
Krakow
Krakow is in many ways similar to Warsaw and in many ways different. We ended up using it as a base for two day trips - Wieliczka Salt Mine and Auschwitz. The city itself has a few nice museums, especially the Rynek Underground Museum and The Princes Czartoryski Museum. It worth visiting.
The trip to Auschwitz isn’t going to have its own section because I can’t, but it is a place that, if you're in Krakow, you have to visit. It’s not fun, it’s not exciting, it is painful and wrenching and awful. But it has to be done.
Tips and Tricks
Lets start with the fun stuff! We ended up staying at the Garamond Hotel which is in the old city. There are a few hotels by the river and we had originally planned to stay there but issues arose. But in the end, being in the old city was really great.
There are a lot of museums that are worth visiting. I mentioned above by the Princes Czartoryski Museum is an excellent traditional museum. The building complex itself is fantastic, and they have a lot of fantastic artifacts. It is home to the famous Leonardo painting Girl with Ermine. I was kind of surprised it wasn’t busier. So if you are a museum person, this is a must-see.
The other excellent museum is the Rynek Underground. It is a really cool museum that is located under the central market square. It has the old foundations of buildings and some great active exhibits. The only issue I had was that it was absolutely packed. But it is a fantastic history of the city and is popular for a good reason.
The Archaeological Museum is a bit on the old side but interesting. The building it’s in has a lovely garden so that was nice. It was a little confusingly laid out, but it has two main collections of Egyptian and Peruvian artifacts. They also have some really nice exhibits about the archaeology of that section of Poland. They also had reproductions of some of the artifacts, and I especially appreciated the bronze sword that allowed me to have a better sense of the weight of that artifact. It’s not an absolute must for a museum, but I enjoyed it. I particularly enjoyed the room where they had reproductions of the clothing from the area for different time periods and dioramas of the style of buildings. That was really nice.
There are quite a few nice churches to visit, especially the one at Warsaw Castle. Actually, the whole Warsaw Castle complex is a must-visit. Make sure you either get there early or order tickets into the buildings ahead of time. We went on Monday which had free entrance, but they only allowed so many visitors and it was busy enough that I wouldn’t be surprised if it sold out. There is an exhibit in the base of the castle that we really enjoyed. We also went into the gardens, which are small but pretty. The tower gives nice views along the river. If you want to do the dragon’s cave, which I really enjoyed and is bigger than you think, do that last. There is one entrance at the top and then one exit at the bottom. If you have other castle stuff to see, you have to walk back up the way you came. So do everything up above first.
Wieliczka Salt Mine was a nice visit. It’s super easy to get to and there are about 1000 options on Viator for getting out there. You have to go with a tour so if you have a small van or a driver, you end up going with the public tour. Do not go on this tour if you are claustrophobic. The first hall is packed very tightly until you go down the stairs to the mines. The mines themselves are interesting, and our guide was excellent. The chambers are actually pretty big and there is some pretty excellent salt sculpture. On the way out, you can crammed incredibly tightly into this elevator. It was a lot. I thought it was interesting and worth visiting.
The last thing I’m going to, recommend, I guess, is visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau. We organized our tour through tours by locals. We had a driver take us out and he arranged a private tour for us. Our tour guide was absolutely perfect in giving us the history without sugarcoating and with a lot of empathy. It’s a weird place to visit, I’m going to say that. It’s weird to be a tourist at a place of such atrocity. It’s weird to see people outside at the vending machines or goofing around waiting for the buses between sites. It’s weird to stand near the crematoria on the ashes of the murdered and see bored teenagers taking selfies. It is an awful and upsetting and terrible place to visit, that has lovely green grass, lots of trees at Auschwitz I, and pretty wildflowers under a perfect blue sky. I can’t say I’m glad I went, and I never want to go back or to another one for the rest of my life. But I’m proud of myself that I went, and if you are in Krakow, you must go as well. We must witness what humanity can do to those it considers others and blames.
I don’t want to end on that note, but I kind of have to. There’s no good place to fit it in, but then, that’s a trip to a concentration camp. It’s not good and it’s not fun but you have to do it for history and for humanity and for those who were lost.
