Billund → Tallinn

Direct drive south through Schleswig-Holstein via Padborg and Flensburg on the A7. No ferry needed if you stay on the Jutland peninsula. Arrive Lübeck mid-afternoon.

The Altstadt is small enough that a 90-minute walk takes in the Holstentor, Marktplatz, St. Mary's Church, and the Niederegger flagship café at Breite Straße 89 (sit-down marzipan-stuffed pastry plate with coffee, around €8). Niederegger has been making marzipan here since 1806 and the upper floor has a small museum if you want it.

Late afternoon, drive 20 km north to Travemünde. Walk the pier and the long beach promenade. Pick up two Fischbrötchen from the working harbour stands at Vorderreihe near the lighthouse, around €4–5 each, properly made with marinated herring or smoked Bückling on dark rye. Drinkable Flensburger beer from the harbour kiosk.

The Philharmonic building is the headline. Barozzi Veiga won the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture — the Mies van der Rohe Award — in 2015 for it. Its most striking feature is the zigzagging roof profile of sharply pitched gables, giving it the look of many conjoined buildings, with a translucent ribbed-glass facade that glows white at night from the lighting within. It sits on the site of a concert hall destroyed in WW2.

Mała Tumska, between the Cathedral and the Royal Gate near the Philharmonic, serves local-style dumplings filled with pearl barley, cod in creamy chanterelle sauce, and Szczecin's famous fish paste on rye sourdough.

Walk around Wały Chrobrego promenade.

Depart comfortably before 09:30 to reach Gdańsk for lunch at 12:00.

Bar Mleczny Neptun on Długa. Sit-down milk bar that has fed locals since 1976, full meal with soup, dumplings, and a drink for under €6.

After lunch, walk to the Old Town (15 min). Climb St. Mary's Church tower (Kościół Mariacki), 405 steps, €4. The platform sits at 78 m and gives the best view of the entire Hanseatic core, the Motława river, and the old shipyard cranes in the distance. Allow an hour including the climb.

Next, Mariacka Street for the amber district.

Goldwasser cellar at Długi Targ 22 for the herbal-vodka tasting and tour, around €15, 30–45 minutes. The original recipe is from 1598, the gold flakes are real.

Take the SKM commuter train from Gdańsk Główny to Gdańsk Oliwa, 15 minutes each way. Walk through Oliwa Park to the Cathedral. Daily 20-minute organ demonstration concerts run hourly in summer, €1.50–5. The 1763 instrument has 7,876 pipes and mechanical sculptures that move during the demonstration: rotating suns, angels playing trumpets. If your date lands on a Tuesday or Friday in July, check the International Organ Festival schedule for that evening's full recital (tickets €12–20, book at the cathedral one hour before).

• July & August demos:
• Mon–Sat at 10:00, 11:00, 12:00, 13:00, 14:00, 15:00
• Sundays & 15 Aug at 15:00 & 16:00

Targ Rybny on the Motława waterfront, around €15 for a proper fresh-fish plate, terrace tables in summer. Or cheap-and-tasty, Kanapka Cool Cat on Piwna for sandwiches and beer under €7, or Bar Pod Rybą on Długi Targ, fried Baltic cod with mash and pickled cabbage, around €8.

Early start, 08:00 latest. Drive 45 min to Malbork. The castle opens 09:00 — book tickets online beforehand. Buy the audio-guide ticket (€17), follow the suggested two-and-a-half hour route. It's the world's largest brick castle by surface area and the Teutonic Order's old headquarters. The scale is the point. Pack a sandwich and eat in the castle park (skip the gate restaurants).

Back on the road by 13:00. Through Olsztyn, Ełk, into Lithuania via the Suwałki Gap (the only land corridor between Poland and Lithuania since Kaliningrad is closed to EU tourists). This is the unavoidable long stretch, four to five hours of driving. Charge once at Ełk (Orlen) and once more at Marijampolė (Ignitis On). Arrive Kaunas around 20:00.

Bernelių Užeiga or Etno Dvaras in the Old Town, traditional Lithuanian, cepelinai or kugelis with a beer, around €10–14. Both stay open until 22:00 or later.

Walk Laisvės Alėja end to end, 1.7 km of pedestrian interwar modernist architecture (UNESCO-listed in 2023). The whole boulevard is essentially a museum of 1920s and 1930s Lithuanian state-building architecture: the central post office, the Pažanga House, the bank buildings. Coffee and pastry at Bundu, sourdough cardamom buns under €4.

M.K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum on Putvinskio 55, €8, 90 minutes. Čiurlionis was a painter-composer (one of the few people in history who was both at a serious level) and the collection of his symbolist paintings here is the strongest Lithuanian art experience anywhere. At the end of his life he was institutionalised; you can see the work tilt across decades.

VR Escape Rooms at V-R Shop.

Višta Puode for modern Lithuanian, mains €10–14. Otherwise pack from a Kaunas Maxima supermarket.

Drive Kaunas → Palanga, 235 km, 3 h. 313 Cable Park and set up tent. €8/day, free showers.

Start the drive at 09:30 from Palanga to Riga, stop at Eat&Chill (2 h, 150 km) for an early lunch — opens 11:30. Drive on 1.5 h, 118 km, to Riga. Or leave at 08:00 and drive straight to Riga and eat at Folkklubs Ala Pagrabs for lunch in the cellar — grey peas with bacon and a smoked-fish platter with live folk music, mains €8–12.

Climb St. Peter's Church tower. The 72 m platform has elevator access (€9). The 360° view across central Riga, the Old Town spires, the Daugava river, and the Art Nouveau quarter to the north is the best urban panorama on this entire trip.

Black Magic Bar on Kaļķu 10. Themed around the 18th-century apothecary Abraham Kunze, alleged inventor of Riga Black Balsam in the 1750s. The ground floor looks like an old pharmacy; a hidden bookcase staircase leads to a candlelit basement tasting room. Order the Riga Black Balsam flight (26 variations) or the hot chocolate with balsam liqueur. Around €25–30 for drinks for two.

Walk the Art Nouveau district along Alberta iela. The highest concentration of Jugendstil façades anywhere in Europe — not promotional copy, demonstrably true. 45-minute self-guided walk along Alberta, Elizabetes, and Strēlnieku streets.

SO.TA, highly rated Korean-Taiwanese, or nearer B Bārs Restorāns.

Hearty brunch at 11:00 at La Baltica Bistro (4.9 rating, cheap). Drive to KMH quad / dirt biking, depart 12:00 arrive 13:00 (42 km, 42 min) — kmh.lv. Go for a 30 or 40 min session. Adult bike €34/42, kids bike/quad €29/36, total €92/114. Cash only. Book ahead, +371 27000061.

Aerodium (open 14:00–19:00) on the Riga–Sigulda highway (km 47). Book a 16:00 slot online ahead. The full experience runs about 60 minutes including instruction and suit-up; actual flight time is 2 minutes (€33) or 4 minutes (€55). Open Thursday to Sunday in summer. The open-air format makes this visually different from indoor mall wind tunnels: you can see trees and sky while you fly. The instructor flies with you, lifting you higher as you stabilise. This is the world's first publicly-accessible vertical wind tunnel (opened 2005) and was the venue used for the 2006 Torino Olympics opening ceremony.

Walk down the Turaida side to Gutmanis Cave, the largest sandstone cave in the Baltics, with graffiti carved into the walls dating back to 1521. Free entry.

Pipars food court €10–15, or Aparjods (Viesnīca un restorāns) on the road to Turaida, traditional Latvian in a renovated farmstead, around €15–18 for mains, with its own brewery on site.

Leave Sigulda 09:00. Drive E77/A2 north through Valmiera, cross into Estonia at Valka/Valga (Schengen, no stops), continue to Tartu. Arrive 12:30.

Werner Café at Ülikooli 11, Tartu's oldest student hangout since 1895, sit-down pastry-and-coffee or a light meal under €12 (Tom-yum pasta on the menu). Across the street from the University.

AHHAA Science Centre at Sadama 1, €20, allow three hours minimum. 170 hands-on exhibits, the bike on the wire across the hall (you actually pedal it), the mirror maze, the planetarium (one extra show €6). The largest science centre in the Baltic states. Plan around the 15:00 Science Theatre demonstration if you can. Different enough from PROTO that doing both is not redundant — AHHAA is the engineering and physics side, PROTO is the immersive VR side.

Walk Toomemägi (the cathedral hill with the medieval ruins and the 1803 observatory), the Town Hall Square with the Kissing Students statue, and across the river to the Aparaaditehas creative district in the old Vidrik instrument factory. Coffee at Crepp on Rüütli street, walk the wooden-house Karlova district (most photogenic around Tähe and Eha).

Aparaat in Aparaaditehas for a €12–14 main, or for something more atmospheric, Püssirohu Kelder (the 18th-century gunpowder cellar bar) for elk soup and local beer under €15.

Early start at 08:30. Drive to Tallinn, arrive 11:00. PROTO Invention Factory at Peetri 10 in Noblessner. €14, opens 11:00. Allow 3 hours. Pace yourself across the VR stations, the 5D underground ride, and the steampunk physical exhibits. Housed in the 1912 Tsarist submarine foundry. Closed Mondays.

Lembit submarine inside the Seaplane Harbour, 500 m walk from PROTO. €17 combined ticket. The submarine alone is 60–90 minutes; the rest of the maritime museum (icebreaker, seaplane replica, 16th-century shipwreck) adds another hour if you want it.

The PROTO café, or Lore Bistroo at Vesilennuki 6 in Noblessner, around €14.

Walk into Telliskivi Creative City. Browse Balti Jaama Turg market on the edge of Kalamaja, the best cheap-eats compass point in the city, with an Uzbek manti counter and a serious fish counter, both around €6–8 per portion.

Park at EuroPark EP69 or X52 Snabb Parkla and walk to both the Patkuli and Kohtuotsa viewing platforms. Tallinn Town Hall is nearby, and so is Katariina käik street.

Motorcity electric karting. Open 11:00–22:00.

Põhjala Tap Room in Noblessner. Estonia's best craft brewery; the kitchen does a serious fish burger and grilled herring around €12–14. Walk the harbour after to scout PROTO and Lembit.

Arrive at Helsinki port 10:30. Before or after lunch, head to Activate Games — floor is lava. Open 11:00–21:00.

Drive back to Oulu, 7.5 hrs.