You can for sure spend months in the Baltic states to enjoy the beautiful landscape. But they are gives you also the chance to easily visit three countries in one week: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. And it is not one homogenous area without differences – that can easily be observed in the capital cities: Tallinn with its wonderful old city fortifications, Rīga with its fantastic art nouveau quarter and Vilnius with its nice baroque style buildings and more than 50 churches.
This tour gives you the option to search for similarities and differences. And there are similarities between Latvia and Lithuania (like the two languages that are pretty close, especially in contrast to Estonian), but also similarities between Estonia and Latvia – the capital cities of both very founded by Germans and long time and rule of the Teutonic Order (which Vilnius was never). What unites all three countries is a long history of different occupiations, the struggle for independence and freedom. And you can still find many remains of this violence-free fight.
Going to the Baltic states was therefore a unique experience. The people were friendly but very quiet, travelling around was easy because of the modern infrastructure. I took the chance to sea a little bit of the rural areas of Latvia and Lithuania, visiting the Salaspils memorial, the Rundāle palace, the famous hill of crosses (Kryžių kalnas) and the city of Kaunas – I wish I had seen more of that. But in just one week I could see the tall Hermann tower, the freedom monument and the Gediminas tower; already that was worth the trip.
Tallinn, Rīga, Vilnius
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania
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