Lithuania
Lithuania's fabled Hill of Crosses is a symbol of defiance as much as a pilgrimage site. More than 100,000 crosses have been planted on this low hill,…
Must-see attractions in The Baltic States
Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania
Vilnius
If you only see one museum in Vilnius, make it this one. On a site that has been settled since the 4th century AD stands the latest in a procession of…
Central Rīga
Like a huge painting that you can spend hours staring at, as your eye detects more and more intriguing details, this must-see Rīga sight is in fact a…
Latvia
Turaida means ‘God’s Garden’ in ancient Livonian, and this green knoll capped with a fairy-tale castle is certainly a heavenly place. The red-brick castle…
Old Town
Dating from the 13th century, the imposing St Nicholas' Church (Niguliste kirik) was badly damaged by Soviet bombers in 1944 and a fire in the 1980s, but…
Tallinn
This sprawling ethnographic and architectural complex comprises 80 historic Estonian buildings, plucked from across the country and resurrected in…
Vilnius
Stately Vilnius Cathedral, divorced from its freestanding belfry, is a national symbol and the city's most instantly recognisable building. Known in full…
Lithuania
With Soviet-era statues of Lenin, Stalin and prominent Lithuanian members of the Communist Party that once dominated Lithuanian towns lining the forest…
Kadriorg
This futuristic, Finnish-designed, seven-storey building is a spectacular structure of limestone, glass and copper that integrates intelligently into the…
Vilnius
Founded in 1579 during the Catholic Counter Reformation, Vilnius University was run by Jesuits for two centuries. During the 19th century it became one of…
Old Town
Completed in 1404, this is the only surviving Gothic town hall in northern Europe. Inside, you can visit the Trade Hall (whose visitor book drips with…
Old Town
The Great Guild Hall (1410) is a wonderfully complete testament to the power of Tallinn's medieval trade guilds. Now a branch of the Estonian History…
Lithuania
This museum on the site of a former Soviet nuclear missile base is situated deep in the heart of the Žemaitija National Park. The highlight is the chance…
Western Estonia & the Islands
Majestic Kuressaare Castle stands facing the sea at the southern end of the town, on an artificial island defended by stone-faced earth bastions and…
Vilnius
This former headquarters of the KGB (and before them the Gestapo, Polish occupiers and Tsarist judiciary) houses a museum dedicated to thousands of…
Kadriorg
Kadriorg Palace, a baroque beauty built by Peter the Great between 1718 and 1736, houses a branch of the Art Museum of Estonia devoted to Dutch, German…
Kalamaja & Telliskivi
When this cavernous, triple-domed building was completed in 1917, its reinforced-concrete shell-frame construction was unique in the world. Resembling a…
Kaunas
Lithuania's dark 20th-century history is poignantly told here, 7km north of Kaunas. Begin in the sombre, church-like gallery with striking stained glass…
Vilnius
Climb the creaky stairs into the free-standing belfry of Vilnius Cathedral, once part of the city's 13th-century defences. Towering 57m high, it's one of…
Southern Estonia
Strikingly set on a bluff above the Piusa River in western Setomaa, the photogenic ruins of one of Estonia's greatest medieval strongholds and places of…
Latvia
This impressive riverside citadel is enjoying an ongoing renovation that's recreating its historic atmosphere. Look for the restored Nicholas Gate near…
Tartu
Atop Toomemägi are the ruins of a Gothic cathedral, built in the 13th century by the knights of the Livonian Order after driving the pagan Estonians from…
Old Rīga
Forming the centrepiece of Rīga’s skyline, this Gothic church is thought to be around 800 years old, making it one of the oldest medieval buildings in the…
Latvia
The city of Sigulda has done a fine job developing the historic buildings at its core into one unmissable complex. The highlight is the Livonian Order…
Latvia
Cēsis Castle is actually two castles in one. The moody dark-stone towers belong to the increasingly restored old castle. Founded by Livonian knights in…
Central Rīga
A real-life house of horrors, this imposing fin de siècle building is remembered by generations of Latvians as the local headquarters of the notorious…
Lithuania
Where the Nemunas, Lithuania's largest river, spills into the Curonian lagoon, it splits into four distributaries: the Skirvytė, the Atmata, the Pakalnė…
Nida
The 52m-high Parnidis Dune is simultaneously mighty and fragile. Past settlements around Nida have been engulfed by the moving sand dune but this is a…
Estonia
Begun by the Danes at the end of the 13th century and strengthened by successive owners including Germans, Swedes and Russians, this castle, along with…
Ķīpsala, Āgenskalns & Torņakalns
There is hardly a place in Latvia that can tell such a poignant and optimistic story as this quietly stunning memorial. Žanis Lipke saved over 50 Jews…
Lithuania
Stepping across the wooden walkway to Trakai's Gothic castle is like tripping into a fairy tale. The castle is estimated to date from around 1400, when…
Curonian Spit National Park
A coven of wooden sculptures is gathered on a forest-clad hill in Juodkrantė, carved by Lithuanian artists over the years since 1979. At this open-air…
Lithuania
Some 21km north of Vilnius, off the Utena road, is Europos Parkas. Leading contemporary sculptors, including Sol LeWitt and Dennis Oppenheim, show over…
Tartu
A treat for word nerds, design hounds and print junkies alike, this interactive museum focuses on the history of printing and paper-making. Machinery from…
Vilnius
Katedros aikštė buzzes with local life. In the 19th century markets and fairs were held here and a moat ran around what is now the square’s perimeter so…
Western Estonia & the Islands
Koguva is an exceptionally well preserved, traditional Muhu village, now protected as an open-air museum. One ticket allows you to wander through an old…
Tartu
This immense, low-slung, glass-clad building is arresting – both Estonians and architecture lovers purred when it opened in late 2016. The permanent…
Rīga Ghetto & Latvian Holocaust Museum
Maskavas Forštate, Avotu Iela & Grīziņkalns
The centrepiece of this arresting and challenging museum is a wooden house with a reconstructed flat, like those that Jews had to move into when the Nazis…
Lithuania
Housed in a neoclassical palace built by Count Feliksas Tiskevicius in 1897, this revamped museum showcases what is reputedly the world’s sixth-largest…
Lithuanian Ethnocosmology Museum
Lithuania
This unusual museum explores the cosmos’s connection to cultural ideas of hell, heaven and earth in its bubble-shaped exhibition centre. Dwarfing it are…
![Western Siberian Eagle Owl [Bubo Bubo Sibericus] in full flight](https://lp-cms-production.imgix.net/2019-06/531770715_high.jpg?auto=format&fit=crop&w=360&ar=1:1&q=75)
