We had originally planned to visit Poland back in 2022 as part of our Finland trip, but had to change our plans due to covid restrictions. With the geopolitical situation in that part of the world, we decided to go ahead and visit Poland and the Baltic countries this year when they are still relatively safe and stable, and also to check off few more countries in Europe on our bucket list.
10D9N in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia & Estonia
30 May 2024 (Thurs): Riga - Tallinn
We arrived Riga bus station 15 minutes before our 9am bus from Riga to Tallinn.
We booked our Lux Express bus tickets from Riga to Tallinn online on Feb 28 (about 3 months before), and was able to get it at a good price of EUR 9.90 ($10.50) per person.
Our 4hr 15min journey from Riga to Tallinn was a smooth one. After traveling 3 times on Lux Express on this trip, we would strongly recommend this bus. It's comfortable and the free wifi was great!
We arrived Tallinn on time at 1.30pm and the fitness training continues with a 10 minutes walk to the hotel. Hello Estonia...country #50!!!
Arrived Ibis Tallinn Center at 1.40pm but our room wasn't ready yet so we dropped off our backpacks at the hotel's luggage storage.
We booked this hotel for $73.60 and was able to offset it with the $50 hotel credit that comes with our Chase Sapphire Preferred cc + 1850 Chase Ultimate Rewards points. The room was comfortable.
Walked 20 minutes to Tallinn Old Town. Viru Gate feels like the grand entrance into the Old Town.
St. Catherine's Passage - This small little alley is one of the 'instagram worthy' spots in Tallinn and we got lucky nobody was around. :)
Random buildings in Tallinn Old Town. Like all other Baltic countries we visited in the last few days, the support for Ukraine is also strong in Estonia. In case anyone thought we intentionally looked for the Russian embassies in both Latvia and Estonia, no we didn't. We just stumbled upon them as we were walking around and couldn't help noticing all these.
Tallinn Town Hall...another 'same same but different' old town square vibe.
St. Olaf's Church. To be honest we were pretty 'churched-out' at this point.
Tallinn is a quite a nice town. It was definitely more touristy and crowded than the Vilnius and Riga.
Alexander Nevsky Cathedral - This cathedral opened in 1900 during the Czarist Empire and is home to Tallinn's largest bell. The impressive exterior showcases Russian Revival architecture with its onion-shaped dome.
St. Mary's Cathedral...we were also 'cathedral-ed out' at this point.
Panoramic view over Tallinn Old Town at Kohtuotsa Viewing Platform.
Toompea Castle dates all the way back to the 9th century and is currently used by Estonia's Parliament.
Old Town of Tallinn has managed to wholly preserve its structure of medieval origin. Hubby loves medieval stuffs so we had to check out the Olde Hansa Medieval Restaurant in Tallinn.
Everything is medieval themed in this restaurant
The restaurant had 3 storeys and the interior was all medieval...even the toilet was medieval...lol!
We went around 4pm for early dinner so the restaurant was pretty empty.
Medieval menu
We ordered the honey beer and cinnamon beer and they came in a medieval beer mug. The food was pretty good and the total cost for our meal was EUR 94.60 ($103).
Wrapped up our sightseeing of Tallinn at 5.30pm and it was time to head back to the hotel.
31 May 2024 (Fri): Tallinn - Helsinki - London - Charlotte - Huntsville
Early start for the day. Checked out of the hotel at 4am and got an Uber to Tallinn airport. It was a quick 5 minutes ride to the airport and the Uber ride cost EUR 6.61 ($7.17).
Tallinn airport is pretty small and we were able to use the Finnair Priority check-in lane so we were done checking in at 4.15am with plenty of time to spare before our 6am flight. Bye bye 10kg backpacks...see ya in the US!
Time to begin our 25-hour journey from Tallinn - Helsinki - London - Charlotte - Huntsville. Booked these flights with 30,000 AA miles + $79.40 per person.
Got access to the Airport Business Lounge in Tallinn airport with my Oneworld Emerald status.
Had our breakfast at the lounge.
Flight #1 - 30 minutes from Tallinn - Helsinki at 6am. Our flight from Tallinn (Estonia) to Helsink (Finland) was one of Europe's shortest international flighs, and definitely the shortest flight I've ever flown. I took a timelapse of our entire flight from takeoff to landing, and held my phone against the window for 24 minutes of the entire flight duration.
Arrived Helsinki airport at 6.25am with a 1.5 hours layover. Had to go through border control here as we were leaving Schengen. Thankfully there were no lines and we cleared border control within 20 minutes after arrival.
We had enough time to make a quick visit to the Finnair Business Lounge.
Enough time for a bubble at 7am. We already had breakfast in Tallinn so we weren't hungry yet.
Then it was time to board flight #2...8am flight to London on Finnair. A surprising perk of Oneworld Emerald status is the ability to choose Premium Economy seat on this 3-hour Finnair flight from Helsinki to London for free. Nothing fancy (and only water or blueberry juice) but the seats were definitely more comfortable than economy.
Arrived London Heathrow airport 30 minutes ahead of schedule at 8.40am. There is a 2-hour time difference between London and Helsinki.
We had 6.5 hours to wait in Heathrow airport and that means it's time for lounge-hopping.
First stop was the Qantas Business Lounge.
The main reason we came to this lounge was for the ala carte brunch that started at 9.30am. We ordered the Salt and pepper squid with green chili dipping sauce and aioli, Salad of buckwheat noodles with poached chicken, chinese broccoli, cucumber, sesame seeds and soy mirin dressing.
After a quick 30 minutes stop at the Qantas lounge, it was time to move on to the main lounge that I wanted to visit here...Cathay Pacific Business Class and First Class Lounge, which is supposedly the best Oneworld lounge in Heathrow.
First stop in the lounge was the dining room in the First Class lounge. Breakfast #4 for me at 10am. Definitely enjoying all the Asian food while I can.
The First Class lounge was pretty busy in the morning so we decided to check out the Cathay Pacific Business Class lounge next door and hang out there for awhile.
Breakfast #5 at 10.45am...Char Siu Pork Bun & Mison Chicken and Mushroom soup.
Went back to the First Class lounge at 12.15pm and it was finally empty.
It was time for lunch. Don't judge how much I've eaten within the past 6 hours...I was just trying to enjoy all the Asian food while I can.
Of course gotta get a shower before the 8.5 hours flight back to the US.
After lounging for 5 hours, it was time to continue our journey home on flight #3 from London to Charlotte on American Airlines. Seat selection was a success with a row of 3 for the 2 of us. Could have tried to get a row of 4 in the middle but decided not to risk it since this flight was pretty full.
Got about 6 hours of sleep on this flight.
Arrived Charlotte airport at 7pm and got through immigration pretty quickly (thank goodness for Global Entry) but had to wait quite awhile for our backpacks coz I forgot to ask the airline staff at Tallinn airport to tag hubby's backpack with the priority tag as well.
It was already 8.15pm by the time we were through security and had 2 hours to wait before our final leg. We were able to visit this AA lounge as we were arriving from an international flight.
Complimentary Business Class upgrade for our 1.5 hour flight from Charlotte to Huntsville to wrap up our 25-hours of travel.
That's a wrap for our Poland & Baltic trip!
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