Baltic

The Baltic region is Europe’s best-kept secret—a collection of three distinct nations (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) that feel like they’ve been plucked straight from the pages of a medieval fairy tale, yet are wired into the future. It’s a place where you can walk through a 13th-century stone gate in the morning and pay for your coffee with a digital wallet in a high-tech hub by the afternoon.

The journey often begins in Tallinn, Estonia, perhaps the most perfectly preserved medieval city in Europe. Walking through the Old Town (Vanatallinn), with its red-tiled roofs, turreted walls, and winding cobblestone streets, you half-expect a knight to come around the corner. I always recommend climbing the steeple of St. Olaf’s Church for a panoramic view of the Baltic Sea on one side and the spires of the city on the other. It’s a city that smells like roasted almonds and pine forests.

Further south lies Riga, Latvia, the “Paris of the North.” While Tallinn is medieval, Riga is grand and sophisticated. It boasts the highest concentration of Art Nouveau architecture in the world; just walking down Albert Street feels like being in an open-air art gallery. Don’t miss the Central Market, housed in giant former zeppelin hangars, where you can taste everything from smoked fish to local rye bread.

The journey culminates in Lithuania, where history takes a more dramatic turn. The capital, Vilnius, is a Baroque masterpiece with a quirky heart—specifically the Republic of Užupis, a neighborhood that declared itself an independent republic with its own constitution (which includes the right for a dog to be a dog). For a moment of pure serenity, head to Trakai Island Castle, a red-brick fortress sitting in the middle of a lake, or the Curonian Spit, where massive sand dunes separate the lagoon from the Baltic Sea.