saltymuffin

Hello everyone!

I am planning a trip for this May/June to Scandinavia and the Baltics - both are areas we have never been. I am hoping to get some feedback on my itinerary.

Our flights are booked (using points), into London, to St.Petersburg and back from Copenhagen. The two days in London are dictacted by award flight availability, however, we are always happy to visit London and find it to be a great place to get over jet-lag.

Based on the reading I have done to date, I am generally happy with this itinerary, with the exception that I am worried I might be short-changing Helsinki. I am not sure where to take the time from . . . the most obvious place might be Tallinn, but it sounds like a fascinating place and I am trying to minimize/eliminate one night stays. I also am wondering about luggage storage options in Helsinki if we do stay just for the day.

When travelling, we spend the majority of our time exploring a place on foot, stopping for informal snacks and meals and visiting museums and galleries.

Thanks for any advice you can offer!

Day 1 - Arrive London 9:00am
Day 2 - London
Day 3 - Fly to St Petersburg
Day 4 - St Petersburg
Day 5 - St Petersburg
Day 6 - St Petersburg
Day 7 - Helsinki between 6:50-8:25am train from St.P and 5:30-7:30pm boat to Tallinn
Day 8 - Tallinn
Day 9 - Tallinn, depart at 6:00pm on the night boat to Stockholm
Day 10 - Stockholm (arrive at 10:00am)
Day 11 - Stockholm
Day 12 - Stockholm
Day 13 - Train to Copenhagen 8:15-13:23 (would flying be better???)
Day 14 - Copenhagen
Day 15 - Copenhagen
Day 16 - Fly out at 2:00pm

Dukey1

You will appreciate your time In Tallinn I suspect. Re train vs. plane Stockholm-Copenhagen

unless you can get a budget flight (www.whichbudget.com or www.skyscanner.net) and baggage allowances you can live with you are going to have to go outside of Stockholm to any of the airports, go through security, etc., etc., vs getting a fast service from downtown Stockholm and ending up in DOWNTOWN Copenhagen and without any of the security issues, the luggage restrictions, and so forth. And what with the security requirements and the travel time into town to/from both airports, reduce that five hours on the train to about three.

Kay2

If you spend the day between train/boat in Helsinki, you can leave luggage at the train station in locker or station service luggage desk. Station service is open daily 6.30-22.00. Storage costs €3 per luggage item. The train station is not far (at least 15 minute walk?) from the harbor with the boats to Tallinn when you are ready to board.

Assuming you would have your luggage stored and leave the station by 9:30am, you could ride the tram around, visit a couple of churches or museums, and visit the harbor. If you want to visit the fortress island, then you probably would not have time for museums or the rock church, spending your time between the train station and the harbor. You would not have time to travel to the open air museum.

I have been to Helsinki many times and I'm not impressed by its museums in comparison to your other destinations, so I would not be concerned with missing them. You can also visit an open air museum in Stockholm. So, bottom line is that you could get a feel for the Helsinki center by foot and tram in that time frame. You will have gotten up early to take the train, so might be a bit tired sightseeing, but can take a break riding around on the tram or sitting in park if the weather is nice.

I personally do not mind one-night stays and I would consider booking a hotel for one night in Helsinki, drop the bags there until room is ready, spend the day/evening seeing the city and the harbor (with the option to take a break at the hotel), and then take an early boat to Tallinn the next morning (I don't know the schedule). But I've also stored luggage at train stations just to spend a few hours in a town, so I can it either way.

saltymuffin

Thank you both so much for your replies! I think what you have said so far is really building my confidence in my itinerary!

kja

I'm sure you will enjoy your trip immensely!

Is there is any way you can add time to your trip? Personally, I think St. Petersburg deserves at least 5 days. I'm not sure what to suggest cutting: I think 3 days are just about right for both Stockholm and Copenhagen. And I was glad to have close to 2 days in Helsinki. I skipped Tallinn, but don't know if I would have had I know what I know now.

Hope that helps!

kja

I should add that, all things being equal, I personally would consider cutting time from Helsinki before cutting time from St. Petersburg, Stockholm, or Copenhagen. But all things may NOT be equal! Do you anticipate future trips to Moscow, Oslo, the Low Countries, or other places that might allow you to pick up whatever you skip this time around? That could make huge difference to your decisions.

ChallengerGrey

We went on a Baltic Cruise in September and hit all these places - mostly one day each (SPB 2 days). In the order you're doing it in, you may want to skip Tallin all together. It'll be anti climatic after SPB. You have a lot of travel to hit all those cities. If we didn't see them on a cruise, we would have just gone to St. Petersburg, Stockholm and Copenhagen. Copenhagen is the most expensive city I've ever been to (and we spent a week in Switzerland before Copenhagen, which is also expensive.) The food is very, very expensive. And if you haven't noticed yet, hotel rooms are charged by the person, per night.
While I found Helsinki very clean, it was a bit boring and could also be skipped. You could really add that time somewhere else at a more relaxed pace.
Enjoy the planning.

saltymuffin

Thanks again everyone. I am going to keep my eye on award availability to maybe eliminate that time in London. . .

bear

I am interested in a similar trip in May. Have you booked your train/ferry tickets? If yes, what source did you use to get timetables and fares? All the best ...

saltymuffin

bear, sorry for the delayed reply. We have booked all of our ferry and train tickets with the exception of the Allegro which can't be booked yet. In all cases we used the local websites to book - look for the english button on each site.

Tallinn to Stockholm:

www.tallinksilja.com

stockholm to Copenhagen:

www.sj.se

Helsinki to Tallinn:

www.lindaline.fi

St.Petersburg to Helsinki:

www.vr.fi