Baltic & Berlin Trip Comments
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Because Virginia and I had a busy (and sometimes hectic) time earlier in the year we wanted a
short and easy foreign trip for August/September, preferably to places we had not visited
before. We chose the "Baltic & Berlin" tour offered by SmarTours, with whom we had
previously gone on group tours.
This was our first visit to Lithuania, Latvia, or Estonia. We now have a general idea of what
those countries are like. They are small countries with small populations, no natural
boundaries, and often occupied by powerful neighbors, yet somehow able to develop and
maintain their national cultures and separate languages. We saw little evidence of poverty,
yet statistics reflect high unemployment and much emigration to other parts of Europe for
better jobs. Each of the capitals of all three countries seem to include a cute "old town"
section built within a century or two of 1500 and an ornate "new town" section built in the
late 1800's; not much seem constructed between those two booms or since.
We made previous visits to Finland, a nation we admire for its educational system,
democracy, creativity, productivity, and courage. A great small country!
Business and pleasure brought us to Germany previously, but as adults this was our first
visit to Berlin. It impressed us as a very large city, very cosmopolitan, politically
aware,very busy, a mixture of classical and ultramodern architecture, much natural beauty,
many cultural attractions, We hope to go back there again before too long.
There were several things we liked about our SmarTours tour. It was short and attractively
priced. We generally stayed three nights in each hotel. Group sightseeing generally took
place only in the morning, giving us leisure time to explore on our own. All our hotels were
very conveniently located, with many attractions within an easy walk. All breakfasts were
included at our hotels but only a total of five or six group lunches or dinners, so we had ample
opportunity to try meals and snacks on our own. There were no early wakeup calls, as no
group activities started before nine or ten in the morning. The tour group was smaller than
the usual tour group; only 28 travelers. They all seemed to have traveled extensively and we
were pleased to be with such interesting people.
There were a few things we did not like about the tour. The geographic routing seemed to
make little sense: from New York east to Helsinki, from Helsinki south to Vilnius, from
Vilnius north to Helsinki, from Helsinki southwest to Berlin and from there northeast back to
Helsinki for our flight west to New York.
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to us seemed very much alike. Nearby St. Petersburg (Russia)
would have been a great addition. How about New York to St. Petersburg to Helsinki, then
to one or two of the Baltic capitals, then on to Berlin, and from there directly to New York?
We also would have liked to be in Berlin longer.
In addition to the time lost because of SmarTours' awkward geographic routing there was
much too much time wasted by SmarTours having us arrive at airports needlessly early (and
we had five flights!).
The group tour could have been improved by having included evening entertainment such as a
cultural show or musical performance. At least our tour leader should have given us
information in each city regarding interesting events taking place during our free time.
All in all, this was a pleasant but low-key tour.