From July 31 to August 24, I drove around the Baltic sea, through 10 different countries, and staying in 8 different cities; Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Minsk, Kaliningrad and Copenhagen.
Stockholm, Sweden
The first stop on my trip was in Stockholm, where I stayed for 3 days. I was there at the end of Stockholm Pride week, and got to see the parade that Saturday.
Helsinki, Finland
From Stockholm, I took the over-night ferry to Helsinki in Finland.
Tallinn, Estonia
From Helsinki, a short ferry trip took me to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Tallinn is a charming city, with a well preserved old town.
Riga, Latvia
Riga is about 4 hours drive from Tallinn. Riga is a relatively large city, with almost a million inhabitants, and there is a charming old town here as well.
Vilnius, Lithuania
Lithuania is the most populous of the three Baltic countries, but there are still less than 4 million people in this country.
Minsk, Belarus
Vilnius is only a 30 minutes drive from the border of Belarus, so I had to make a visit there too. Belarus is one of the few communist countries still around, and the bureaucracy was evidend from the first contact. The border crossing formalities took 90 minutes.
Kaliningrad, Russia
Kaliningrad is a Russian city of almost half a million people, in a small piece of land between Lithuania and Poland, separate from the rest of Russia. This is one of the ugliest cities I have ever seen.
Copenhagen, Denmark
From Kaliningrad I drove to Gdansk in Poland and took a ferry from there to Copenhagen, where I spent the last few days of my holiday, before driving back to Oslo over the Øresund bridge connecting Denmark and Sweden.
