Every year SAS airlines runs a special in
December where they send an email each day and for that day you can buy tickets
to the named city at a very special rate. The trick is you have to travel
in winter!
So we considered of all the places SAS flies what would be
unique and give us the opportunity to see a lot of different things. After
studying the map and lists and talking to friends we decided on Tallinn,
Estonia. I know, sounds like a strange choice but look at the map from
Tallinn it's a relatively short trip to Latvia, Lithuania, Finland and even St.
Petersburg, Russia! Thus the option to investigate a lot of new
places.
The flight ended up only a little over
$500/pp rt. A deal at anytime of year. We worked with Sissel at
Borton Overseas. She put
together all of our hotels, transfers, ferry rides, rental car and some short
day tour guides. In the end we opted to spend time in Tallinn, drive down
to Riga, Latvia and take the ferry for a day trip to Helsinki, Finland.
Here find our story and photos.
We started off flying non-stop from Seattle
to Copenhagen, Denmark and then switching to Estonia Airlines for the short hop
to Tallinn.
We also got to sample many different
restaurants - medieval themes, Russian, local flavors. Throughout the
week the food included bear, duck, venison and reindeer! These was
washed down with local beers and a great Russian vodka - Russian Standard
Platinum.
The return trip was the same flying but
gave us a few hours to learn a little about Denmark in the rather large
airport in Copenhagen. Denmark gets my vote, a large can of beer was
cheaper than a Coke :).
All in all, four countries, four
currencies all with different conversion rates, bitter cold and some
beautiful places and amazing history shared with family.
