ESTONIA - LATVIA - LITHUANIA

DAY 1: TALLINN

Arrival in Tallinn. Private transfer to hotel. Check-in. Free afternoon in the city. Overnight in Tallinn. 

DAY 2: TALLINN

Have breakfast at the hotel. Enjoy a private Tallinn Old Town excursion (2hrs).

Tallinn is the oldest capital in Northern Europe and was added on a map in 1154 by Arabian geographer Al-Idrisi. During the tour explore the Holy Spirit Church, the 600 years old Gothic Town Hall, Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, the world`s oldest functioning Pharmacy on Town Hall Square and the 159-meter high Oleveste Church which was the highest structure in the world in the 16th century. Visit Toompea Hill which offers breathtaking views over the city. Toompea Castle was built in the 13th and 14th centuries and today it is the seat of the nation`s parliament.

Continue with a visit to the Jewish Community Centre with its school and new synagogue (opened in 2007). During the Second World War, the Jewish community in Tallinn was all wiped out, and its synagogue bombed. You will visit the Old synagogue and pay tribute to the victims of the Holocaust and Stalinist terror.  (Estonia Jewish Museum is open on weekdays only.)

Have a late afternoon and evening at leisure. Overnight in Tallinn.  

DAY 3: TALLINN - RIGA

After breakfast check out and have a private transfer to Riga (~4,5 h). Arrival and check into the hotel. Have free time for lunch.

Enjoy a private combined Riga Old Town and Art Nouveau walking tour (4hrs), seeing remarkable sights like St. Peter's Church and Dom Cathedral with one of the world's most historic organs. The Powder Tower and city walls will make you feel the breath of the medieval era. The guide will show you the oldest stone residential dwellings in Riga the Three Brothers, as well as the Great and Small Guilds, the fortification wall of Riga and the Swedish Gate. The guide will tell you to the interesting story of the Cat House and will show you Town Hall Square with the beautiful and elegant Blackheads House.

Visit Art Nouveau district and enjoy world-famous masterpieces made by Jewish architect Michael Eisenstein.

Walk to Art Nouveau district. Riga is like a museum of architecture, covering periods from Gothic to Classicism. But the real treasure of the city is the largest and best-preserved collection of Art Nouveau buildings in the world. This fact was corroborated by UNESCO in 1997 and now the central section of Riga is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Riga is sometimes called the "capital" of Art Nouveau thanks to the heritage of 800 buildings of Art Nouveau. 

The exteriors of the Art Nouveau buildings are imaginatively decorative and won`t leave guests incurious or without an opinion. 

DAY 4: JEWISH RIGA

After breakfast have a private Jewish sightseeing (~5 hrs) tour for with a guide and car. Jewish sightseeing will take you to Riga Peitav Shul Synagogue, which is only one synagogue who Nazis didn’t burn down and remains the only one functioning synagogue in Riga. In Riga former Getto you will see more than 70,000 names of Holocaust victims. Ruins of Chorale synagogue and Riga's Jewish community. 

Visit the Zanis Lipke Museum which is dedicated to a brave man who saved more than 50 Jews from the Nazis during the Second World War by hiding them in a bunker under a shed.
Bikernieku Forest is the site of the biggest mass murder and burial of victims of Nazi terror in Latvia. From 1941 to 1944, 35,000 people including Latvian and Western European Jews, Soviet prisoners of war and the Nazis’ political adversaries were killed here.

After Bikernieku Forest visit, drive to Rumbula (~ 15km) and visit one of the biggest sites of mass killings of Jews in Europe. In November 1941 the Nazi Administration decided to destroy all the Jews imprisoned in the Riga Ghetto. 25,000 people including about one thousand Jews deported from Germany were shot in two waves on November 30 and December 8, 1941. Several hundred Jews from the Kaiserwald concentration camp, who were used for exhuming and burning bodies, were also killed here in 1944.

Free time for leisure and enjoying the city on your own. Overnight in Riga.

DAY 5: RIGA – KAUNAS – VILNIUS

Breakfast at the hotel. Departure to Kaunas (~3.5 hrs).

Tour of the Museum of the 9th Fort – the memorial for victims of the Holocaust. At the end of the 19th century, Kaunas was encircled by eight forts. On the end of the First World War, the construction of the 9th Fort was completed. From 1924 the 9th Fort was a branch of Kaunas Prison. During the first Soviet occupation (from 1940 to 1941) the 9th Fort became a prison of the NKVD, from which political prisoners were sent to the Gulag. During the occupation of the Nazis (from 1941 to 1944) the 9th Fort became area site of mass murder. Around 50,000 people were murdered at the 9th Fort between 1941 and 1944, of whom 30,000 were Jews.

Later visit Sugihara House (1 h). Sugihara House was formerly the Japanese Consulate in Kaunas from 1939 to 1940. The Japanese consular officer in Kaunas at that time was Chiune Sugihara. During the Second World War, he saved about 10,000 Jews from Lithuania, Poland, and Germany by issuing them Japanese visas, without the approval of his own government. Afterwards, see the former Jewish quarter and the former Ghetto.

Free time for lunch in Kaunas Old Town (~1 h).

Afterwards have a private guided tour through Kaunas Old Town to see remarkable sights like the ruins of Kaunas Castle, City Hall, House of Thunder, Vytautas Church, Cathedral, the old Presidents’ Residence, St. Gertrude’ s Church, the Avenue of Freedom and Kaunas Choral Synagogue. 

Transfer to Vilnius and overnight.

DAY 6: VILNIUS

Breakfast at the hotel.

Enjoy a private guided tour of historical Vilnius Old Town (2hrs), one of the largest in north-Eastern Europe. Visit the most important sights like Cathedral Square with the Dome Church and Clock-Tower, St. Anne’s Church, Town Hall Square and Vilnius University, the Gates of Dawn with the holy image of the Virgin Mary. During the tour, the guide will show you the Gediminas Castle and Tower, and interesting Uzupis district. Vilnius is often called a Baroque city. However, the ruins of castles, narrow streets, church spires, bell towers, red tile roofs, and residential cellars testify that Vilnius has also been greatly influenced by the Gothic style. In the 16th century Gothic became intertwined with Renaissance, and in the 17th – 18th-century Baroque buildings started to appear.

During the Vilnius, tour visit important Jewish Heritage places like Vilnius Choral Synagogue, the former Jewish quarter and the two Ghettos.

Free time for lunch in Vilnius.

After lunch visit Paneriai (Ponar) Forest, the memorial for victims of the Holocaust. The site is on the outskirts of Vilnius, 16 km from the city center. During the Nazi occupation, this place was used for mass executions. Thousands of innocent people died in the pits of Paneriai. Different studies have placed the number murdered at Paneriai between 1941 and 1944 at around 100,000 people, of whom 70,000 were Jews.
Later drive to the old Jewish cemetery in Vilnius, the only Jewish cemetery in Vilnius remaining to the present day. See the mausoleum of the Vilnius Gaon (Elijah ben Šlomo Zalman).
Overnight in Vilnius.

DAY 7: VILNIUS departure

Breakfast at the hotel. Check out. Transfer to airport and departure. 

Package price in Euro per person based on twin sharing room in Low Season (1st of November - 15th of April) in 2023:

Package price in Euro per person based on twin sharing room in High Season (16th of April - 31st of October) in 2023:

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