The Ultimate Baltic Countries Transfer Guide
Riga, Latvia to Vilnius, Lithuania
(One of the easiest ways to travel from one country to the other!)
Are you thinking about traveling to the Baltic but don’t quite know where to start?
A few months ago, I was sitting on the couch editing photographs from my trip to Czechia, Poland, and Slovakia - when I was trying to find a new tv show to watch. One of of the “Most Popular” lists was the TV series, Chernobyl, and after watching the trailer I decided to dig in.
Fast forward just a few days afterwards when the indent in the couch sunk in a little more, and my mind was buzzing from finishing this gripping series. I binged it oh, so heavily, and it left a lasting impression. I started to do some research as to where it was filmed and found that Vilnius, Lithuania was one of the top places that filmed it. A few weeks afterwards, we found a great deal on airline tickets, and next thing we knew - we were on the plane headed to Europe!
From Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania - these were the top 3 countries on my list.
But when I went to do more research on places to see and things to do - I realized some of the top recommendations to visit were inbetween Latvia and Lithuania - with one problem… we weren’t renting a car!
How to get from Riga to Vilnius
I found a company called Traveller Tours - which is a tour company that not only provides tours but also transfers from one Baltic city to another.
I enjoyed this aspect because:
1) I wanted to be able to take the time to visit these places that came highly recommended - but the places recommended were right on the border of these two countries and not easily accessible without a car.
2) I didn’t want to have to drag my luggage with me everywhere and being able to have it in storage while we went on a tour was top-notch.
3) I didn’t want to have to backtrack and waste another day going to these places. (AKA taking a direct train or bus from Riga to Vilnius, getting to the hostel, going to sleep, then the next day waking up early and having to do a 12 hour tour that took us right back to the border of Latvia/Lithuania.)
The most common way to get from Riga to Vilnius is a four-hour direct bus.
However, this tour was a 12 hour deep dive into the history, culture, and architecture of both countries!
The Ultimate Baltic Transfer Guide
Our day started out at 7am in Riga. Our guide, Ruta, had a bus ready for us waiting by our hotel. It was a larger van with lots of room, including an empty trunk that was perfect for all our luggage.
Ruta had beautiful curly hair, stylish golden framed glasses, and gorgeous, sparkly nails that glistened in the morning light as her hands rested on the steering wheel. We chatted a bit about where we were from, what we did for work, and why we were in the Baltic.
Before I knew it, we were already at our first stop - the Salaspils Memorial Ensemble.
Salaspils Memorial
This memorial was built on the site of a former Nazi police detention camp. The memorial was hauntingly beautiful and incredibly moving. There were massive concrete sculptures, pictured below. It was somber but necessary to understand the regions history. Between 2,000 to 3,000 prisoners died directly in the Salaspils camp, over the course of three years, due to malnourishment, disease, and experiments.
Sculptures like “The Unbroken” and “Humiliation” are shown, as a metronome plays a heartbeat that echoes throughout the forest. The camp was used as a labor correctional camp, with many children held in special barracks, and many passing away from poor conditions.
Rundale Palace
Once we crossed into the southern Latvia countryside, we arrived at the “Versailles of the Baltics” AKA the Rundale Palace!
The Rundale Palace is an 18th century palace, designed as a summer residence for the Dukes of Courland. It features 138 restored rooms, a French garden (including a massive rose garden) and now it serves as a museum and tourist destination in Latvia.
It was a sunny day without any clouds in sight - perfect for a road trip!
We were able to tour the basement of the palace, as this is where the majority of artifacts were found in the restoration. After an hour or so of visiting the palace, we hopped back into the car and traveled to our next destination!
Villa Audruvis
As we crossed over the border into Lithuania, we had lunch at Villa Audruvis, a restaurant that also hosts equestrian sports, and as we walked up there were riders on horses in a competition. I had the eggplant with tofu and tomatoes!
After lunch, we headed towards the Hill of Crosses.
The Hill of Crosses is a Catholic pilgrimage site with over 200,000 to one million crosses, crucifixes, and rosaries.
The views of all the crosses along the winding paths of this hill was a powerful experience. There were little stalls as you parked that also offered crosses for you to purchase for a few euros, to which you could then place on the hill. Many of the crosses in which we saw had names and dates inscribed upon them. I thought of the hundreds of thousands of people who have come to this very spot and pray for their loved ones and I prayed for mine too.
One of the highlights of the tour transfer was getting to visit Kaunas - Lithuania’s second largest city!
In Kaunas, we explored the Old Town - which had cobblestone streets lined with little shops to check out. The population of Kaunas is about 304,200 but it truly felt like a smaller city.
Our tour guide, Rūta, shared that Lithuania was known for a few things but that basketball was one of the main ones. In Lithuania, basketball is known as their second religion. It was introduced in the 1920s and 1930s, but really took off in 1992 as their Olympic journey was supported financially by the band, Grateful Dead. I noticed in a few of the tourist sourvenir shops, they had tie-dye t-shirts with the iconic “Skullman” skeleton, in Lithuanian colors - a very popular t-shirt back in the 90’s.
We wandered past the Kaunas Castle, saw the Gothic architecture of the many churches nearby, and ate at Hesburger - the largest hamburger fast food chain in Finland, Estonia, Lativa, and Lithuania. And honestly? I kinda digged it!
Normally when it comes to fast-food places here in the U.S. I am limited to the amount of options due to being vegetarian and many of these places cooking their fries with natural beef flavor. However, literally everywhere else in the world - they use vegetable oil instead of beef, which means that I can normally eat the fries, including Hesburger! They also had a veggie burger which was really good for fast-food.
We arrived into Vilnius, Lithuania around 8 - 9pm, with the drop off being directly in front of our hotel. This was super convenient as we were tired from the day and didn’t want to have to navigate through winding unknown streets at night!
If you are looking for your next transfer in the Baltics, I cannot recommend Traveller Tours enough. Instead of staring at a highway for four hors, you get 12 hours of storytelling, hidden gems, an incredible tour guide, and a much deeper connection to these two beautiful countries.
Sincerely,
Autumn
