Riga, Tallinn and a Day Trip to Helsinki

Three cities, three countries, one week — and not a single early-morning scramble to a coach park.

We start in Riga and stay long enough to get past the postcard: the medieval core and the Art Nouveau quarter with a guide who speaks our language, then a day on Kipsala, the wooden-house island most visitors never reach, and the vast Central Market in its old Zeppelin hangars. Then a comfortable coach north to Tallinn, where the walls, towers and cobbled lanes of the best-preserved medieval old town in northern Europe are waiting. From there, one early ferry and two hours across the Gulf takes us to Helsinki for the day — design, sea air, the harbour market — and back to Tallinn by evening.

Six nights, all of them in 4-star hotels inside the historic centres, so the city is outside the door rather than a taxi ride away. Italian-speaking guides in all three cities. A Tour Leader with us from the first evening to the last, handling the logistics and, every afternoon, offering the choices rather than dictating the schedule. In June the light lasts until nearly midnight, which means the free time is genuinely usable — and there is real free time, by design.

Two medieval capitals, a Nordic capital, and enough room to breathe between them.