Denmark, the Baltics, and Poland

This trip was a bit less planned, at least strategically, than our usual trips.  It all started with a flight alert I received for round trip to Copenhagen for $450.  We had to jump on it but rather than end back up in Copenhagen, we decided to search for return flights from neighboring major cities to see we could get something comparable without the full circle back.  Returning from nearly every other city increased the price by at least $100, except for Warsaw, Poland, so the choice was made for us and we booked the tickets without planning out what to do in between.

Initially we were thinking about going south to Czech Republic and/or Slovakia and/or Austria.  We had put together a rough draft of an itinerary and it had a lot of driving and not a lot of time in the three aforementioned companies.  I got another flight alert for Helsinki and while it was too soon to seriously consider it, I looked at the route and saw the Baltic states touching Poland and a light bulb lit up.  The Baltics were on our radar for a while and we had looked for cruises to visit all three before, but never found any (mainly because Lithuania doesn’t have any major coastal cities).  After some creative planning and taking advantage of super cheap inter-Europe airlines, our final itinerary all came together.

Copenhagen, Denmark

We arrived in Copenhagen about 2pm on a Saturday and took the train to the city center.  The first thing we noticed was that the thousands of bicycles at the train station were not locked up.  None of them.  I just couldn’t believe it and frantically searched for locks — we ended up finding two out of an endless sea of bikes.  We walked two blocks and checked into Hotel Tiffany, a nice boutique hotel chosen for proximity to the train station and Tivoli Gardens (which so happened to be closed this time of year…).  The family room we had reserved came with two bags of freshly made bread delivered to the room on each of our two mornings, which was a nice touch and let us ease into the time zone change.

We headed out in the drizzle towards Christiansborg Palace, due north of us.  We passed through an archway and there was a line of about 30 people on the side.  Somehow I convinced Jaime to get in line even though we had no idea what it was.  We came to realize that this actually happens quite often on our adventures — if there’s a line, we’ll get in it and if there’s a tower, we’ll go up it.  Turns out that this was both, it was a line for The Tower in the palace.  The views from the top were great and helped us get our footing on where we’d wander to next.  Still walking through the palace grounds, we came upon the Royal Stables and took a quick tour to see the horses and ornate carriages next door.

We continued the walk north looking for the best photo op in Copenhagen, a row of colorful buildings along a canal.  We almost gave up on it because it was farther than we realized and it was getting colder and we were getting wetter from the rain.  Right when I started to pull out a map, we saw a large group of tourists a block away — we had found Nyhavn.  After taking the obligatory pictures, we aimed towards a street food place popular with locals called Papiroen.  It was about a 15 minute walk across several scenic foot bridges.  From the outside in the rain, we would never have guessed the madness inside.  It’s a large industrial space that has maybe 30-40 different booths with different types of food and is jam-packed with people.  We almost left as there was nowhere to sit but then we lucked out and saw people leaving an overflow seating area in a loft above some of the food stands.  We had a hodgepodge of delicious ethnic foods and then walked back to the hotel for the night.

The next day we had a bit of a late start.  We walked along the famous pedestrian street called Strøget until we came upon one of a couple boat launches on the canals.  We bought tickets for an hour long tour around the city.  Because it was still cold and raining, most of the windows on the boat were fogged up, but it was still a nice way to break up the day and the kids enjoyed it.  Afterward, we walked to the 17th century Round Tower.  It’s one long circular ramp all the way up and makes for a nice stroll.  There are amazing views of the city from the top.  There is also an observatory at the very top though it was closed to the public.  On the way back, we went into the Christiansborg Palace only to find out that they were closing in 5 minutes.  We went back to the hotel to warm up and dry off.  For dinner, we took a taxi to and from a burger place called Cock’s and Cows.  I chose it purely from the witty name and the food ended up being extremely good.

The next morning, we ate our fresh breads from the hotel again and then went off to the airport.  Surprisingly we didn’t talk to a single person in the airport — gates would open based on scanning your individual tickets to proceed into different areas.  Since Denmark and Estonia are both in the EU, there was also no immigration or customs upon arrival.  We flew in and out of Riga, Latvia as it was cheapest for both airfare and car rental.  It added a bit of driving time but we appreciated seeing more of the countries than just the capitals so it was worth it in the end.  The only downside was that Hertz was not located in the airport.  It was a 5 minute walk away which might usually be fine except that it was very cold and had just started snowing.  We drove immediately to Tallinn, about 4.5 hours away.  The most interesting part of the drive was seeing the border buildings all boarded up.

Tallinn, Estonia

Since we were arriving after 8pm, we had to check-in for our apartment at the owners’ second location across town.  It seemed out of the way at first but since we needed parking we would have had to go there anyway to park as driving and parking is very limited within the Old Town.  The 15 minute escorted walk to the apartment was quite chilly as Tallinn is due north of Riga.  The streets were empty though and the city is gorgeous, especially at night.  We were staying in an apartment on the Old Town Square and as soon as we entered the plaza we were blown away.  Our apartment had two balconies overlooking it too and the view never got old.  I went out solo and brought some dinner back from a nearby restaurant that was just about to close.

The next morning, we asked some locals where we should eat breakfast and ended up at the Peppersack.  After a hearty breakfast we walked down the main shopping drag towards the most famous entrance, Viru Gate, on the southeast side of Old Town.  We then walked north along the inside of the city walls.  At one point, there was a small door with a staircase inside, so of course we went in, paid a small entrance fee, and ended up on top of the city walls.  You can actually walk along them for a bit but we decided against it as the walkways were too slippery.  Continuing north, we ended up at the Fat Margaret tower (best name ever).  It currently houses the Estonian Maritime Museum.  We warmed up in the museum, which had a couple of kids things to do, a whole floor dedicated to vikings, and great views from the top.

We stopped at a cafe for coffee and snacks before continuing onto Toompea Hill in the south west for the afternoon.  This part of town used to be separate from Old Town and was reserved for the rich.  There are only two ways to access the hill area (we went up one and down the other).  The main gate is through a house and then you walk up a pathway called the Long Leg.  One of your first sights is the very ornate Russian Orthodox Alexander Nevsky Cathedral.  It’s even more ornate and beautiful inside (though take off your hats!).  Behind the cathedral is the Toompea Castle which currently houses parliament.  From this side, it didn’t look too exciting so we didn’t tour it and instead continued our wandering around.

We stopped at one of a couple viewing platforms that offer incredible views of Old Town.  It’s also one of the only times we saw other tourists in Estonia, and there were only a handful of them.  Continuing down the deserted streets, we see a sign for a Drinking Museum that also advertised a wine tasting.  The kids were being restless so we skipped the museum but couldn’t pass up the wine tasting (we ended up buying a bottle too).  It amazed me that even in the low season there was a very nice and attentive person just waiting for tourists to stumble in.  We got turned back by some construction and made it to the second viewing platform in a roundabout way.  This one was even better than the first and the only place we stopped for an official family photo.

We rounded out Toompea Hill by heading to the final corner that has a tower called Kiek in de Kok (say it out loud).  It wasn’t anything special and they didn’t take advantage of the name for tourists’ sake.  It was along some more old city walls and a couple other towers that were turned into cafes and restaurants.  We went inside, asked how to go up to the top of the tower(s), were told to buy a ticket, and then start by going downstairs…  We followed her directions thinking it was the start of a tour path.  The stairs actually lead to a single tiny room full of old Estonian candy bars in glass cases.  It was completely random and we couldn’t help but laugh about it for most of the trip.  When we went up the original stairs by the ticket desk, it led to an empty cafe on one floor and an empty restaurant on the next floor.  Not wanting to intrude or make them think we wanted to order, we didn’t leave the staircase.  Downstairs again, we walked down a hallway towards Kiek in de Kok but the door was either locked or we couldn’t figure out how to open it, so we turned around and worked our way back to the hotel.

Jaime and I were looking for dinner places on our phones and she found a highly rated one called “Rataskaevu 16” which sounded familiar to me.  I looked it up and realized that was the same address as our apartment’s original check-in location (if we had arrived earlier).  It was fate.  We walked the two blocks over had dinner there.  It was a highlight of the trip!  The service was the best I’ve ever had, the food was great (with amazing free pumpkin bread), and there was a small kids play area right next to our table.  After dinner, we realized there was only one part of Old Town that we hadn’t been to, so we had to check it out.  It had just started snowing which made for an extra special evening walk.

The next morning, the kids got up on their own but were a little fussy so I just picked up random pastries at a nearby bakery for breakfast, and then we hit the road shortly thereafter.  We left the major roads about half way through Estonia to aim towards our next destination.  The last 30 minutes within Estonia was pretty rough with snow and unplowed streets.  When we reached the Latvian border, which was also boarded up, the roads were suddenly plowed.

CÄ“sis, Latvia

Our next stop was the city of CÄ“sis that is entirely within the large Gauja National Park.  There are several old parts of the city though we focused primarily on the ruined castle in the middle of town.  We purchased tickets and were escorted into another room where they lit a candle and put it in a lantern for us.  That’s when we knew we were in for a treat!  The castle was gorgeous and there was no one else there so we had free reign of the place.  At one point another family showed up but they were only there for a couple minutes.  The lantern came in handy for a couple of dark rooms.  We didn’t make it to the darkest one as Lydia got too scared by the small dark spiral staircase leading up to it.  There was also a dungeon you can crawl down into though none of us opted to try.  On the way out we were directed to continue the tour in the new castle which we didn’t know was part of our ticket.  We were in kind of a hurry at this point so we only checked out the first floor and then climbed a lot of stairs to the tower platform which had great views of the ruined castle and surrounding city.

We had read about bobsledding and cable car rides elsewhere in the park.  We drove to the city where they were and discovered the bobsledding was closed this time of year and the land was flat all around us so the cable car was likely just up to a platform.  We were less excited about it then and it wasn’t in an obvious location, so we continued on to Riga.

Riga, Latvia

We checked into our hotel in Riga and wandered around to find a place for dinner.  It was surprisingly hard.  The Old Town was mostly made up of fancier (read: not kid-friendly) restaurants and bars.  Lydia and I actually went into one place to see if they were still serving dinner and it was a bar with no food at all!  After zigzagging a few blocks we decided to just eat at the restaurant attached to the hotel.  By this time, the kids were getting loopy and were fussy all throughout dinner.  We ate quickly and retired to the room.  Lydia then discovered that each end table had ear plugs so we knew we were in for a fun night.  It was indeed fairly loud with lots of partying going on.

The next morning we started by wandering around Old Town.  It’s very small and we ended up criss-crossing it a couple times as we would overshoot things we wanted to see and end up backtracking later.  On the other hand, the other part of Riga, known as the Quiet Centre, felt much larger than the map showed and walking around seemed to take forever.  We went to a part of Quiet Centre that is full of beautiful and ornate Art Nouveau architecture.  After hitting all the main sights, we stopped at a playground for the kids to play for a bit.  Next to the playground was a huge awesome statue of a monkey cosmonaut.

Afterward we walked back to Old Town to hit a couple more sights on the to-do list.  One cool stop is called Three Brothers.  It’s three buildings next to each other, all built in different eras with different architectural styles.  There was a guy seemingly watching us while “reading” a book.  We lost him and ended up in a plaza with other strange/creepy people that were caricatures of bad movie spies or mob lookouts.  When looking for them, they were all over Riga.  We stopped at a cafe called Black Magic during our walk and ended up having a great lunch at a place we couldn’t get into for dinner the night before called Petergailis.

We were then back on the road again, this time towards Lithuania!

Kaunas, Lithuania

The guidebook we used talked about a very unique museum in Lithuania’s second-largest city.  While we were on the road, we looked up the opening times and initially thought we’d arrive too late.  Turns out they were open late one night a week and this was it, so we had to check it out — it was the Devil’s Museum.  We got there 30 minutes before closing and were greeted by one of the three older ladies that run the museum.  It’s made up of a collection of devil statues, masks, toys, etc from around the world.  It’s quite a large collection that filled up good-sized rooms across three floors.  We made it out right at closing and continued on to Vilnius.

Vilnius, Lithuania

We arrived in Vilnius fairly late.  While Jaime got the kids’ pajamas on, I ran out to pick up dinner from a place down the street called Amatininkų Užeiga.  It was a bit cramped eating in the hotel room because we were on the top floor and had slanted ceilings but at least the food was good.

The next morning, we began our usual wandering of the Old Town.  We went down the main pedestrian shopping street, Pilies, to the Vilnius Castle Complex.  This area has a tower (which we went part way up before it became too steep), a large cathedral, a palace, and castle ruins on top of a steep hill.  Unfortunately the funicular was closed due to a landslide destabilizing the soil so we couldn’t tour the ruins.  While Tallinn’s Old Town is extremely well preserved and Riga’s was overrun by modern city life, Vilnius seemed like a perfect mix of old and new.  There are several large plazas surrounded by old buildings and modern restaurants.  Great old gates and alleys next to modern museums.

For lunch, we crossed a bridge into the Republic of Uzupis, a neighborhood that declared independence in 1997.  Though they are unrecognized by any governments, they have a president, cabinet, currency, flag, and constitution.  The constitution is translated into 23 languages and posted on large metal plates along a street in the middle of the republic.  After reading through the quirky articles of the constitution, we had a couple of amazing pizzas at Uzupio Picerija.  On the way out of the republic, we stopped at a bookstore, bought copies of the constitution, and got our passports stamped.

Next, we were off to Riga again in order to catch an early morning flight to Warsaw, Poland.  We stayed at a different hotel but still couldn’t find any good family-friendly restaurants and ended up ordering Pizza Hut.  We still had that bottle of wine from Tallinn and couldn’t bring it with us, so we drank it with dinner.  We had to leave for the airport about 5 hours later and we got stopped at a police checkpoint for DUIs.  It was quite amusing because I had no idea how to use a breathalyzer and the cop was speaking very fast Latvian to me.  Once I awkwardly requested English, he just said “blow, blow” and 10 seconds later we were back on track!

Warsaw, Poland

Upon arrival in Warsaw, we took a cab to Old Town but then discovered that check-in for the apartment we booked was actually over a mile away (I knew it was a separate location but the directions and addresses were confusing).  Luckily we found a cab quickly and made it to the office though it was too early to check in.  We found a nice cafe for breakfast and coffee while determining next steps.  I noticed that the massive and imposing Palace of Culture and Science was somewhat nearby so we went there and enjoyed the views from the 30th floor observation floor (note: signs all say XXX).  When then tried to find the Fotoplastikon (an old school stereoscopic theater) a block away.  We saw the building but no easy way to cross the street.  Once we realized we had to walk a few extra blocks to cross underground, we just decided to pass on it this time and continued back towards the apartment office.  We stopped at a “milk bar” which was on my to-do list — it’s nothing more than a cheap cafeteria though — and ate some crepes.

After checking in, we cab’d it back to the apartment (pre-paid by the company this time).  Our apartment’s location was top-notch.  Perfectly centered, overlooking the main Old Town Market Place.  After settling in, we headed up and around the north part of Old Town.  There are great city walls and watch towers along the way, all beautifully rebuilt after WWII.  We ventured a little bit out of Old Town to visit a memorial and wall portion of a horrific Jewish Ghetto that existed from 1940 to 1943 and the 1944 Warsaw Uprising Monument. We had a late lunch of pierogies at Zapiecek (of which there are several around Old Town).

We continued the walk around the outside of the city walls to the main entrance/plaza with the Royal Castle along one side and Sigismund’s Column in the middle.  Lydia and I went up to the top of a nearby building while Jaime and Edie skipped the stairs.  The views from the terrace were amazing.  We ended the evening with some street-side desserts and repacked our bags a bit.

The next morning we had breakfast at small cute place called TO LUBIĘ and then went off to the airport for an uneventful trip home.