Estonia is best known among international visitors for its capital, Tallinn, with its medieval old town, cathedrals, and museums. But the diminutive country is full of delightful corners well beyond the capital, all of them quite welcoming to budget travelers. Here are five that we love:

1. Tartu

Estonia’s second city, Tartu, is a university town. This means lots of students, really good graffiti, and some great cafes. Tourist highlights include the city’s Old Town, a partially pedestrianized zone with plenty of mostly neoclassical buildings, and Toome Hill, which rises above it. The Tartu City Museum is another draw. Museum lovers note that the city’s expansive Estonian National Museum will reopen in a new space in September 2016.

Stay: Barclay Hotel, (Ülikooli 8) a stately, modern hotel with a storied history, is worth a splurge. Doubles begin at €89. (All hotels in Tartu)

Getting there: Tartu can be reached in two hours by train from Tallinn (€10.10).

2. Lahemaa National Park

Lahemaa National Park is Estonia’s oldest and largest national park, full of bogs, pine forests, boulder fields, and klint (limestone) valleys. There are eight maintained hiking trails, ranging from one to 17 kilometers in length, as well as campsites. Worth a stop is Sagadi Manor, a hotel and museum complex located within the national park.

Stay: Rooms at Viiking Guest House (Karja tänav 9, Võsa) begin at €30.

3. Pärnu

Since 1838, the western Estonian town of Pärnu has been a spa destination. Visitors still come all year round for the spas, while beautifully maintained beaches cast a summertime spell. During high season, the city’s beach promenade is a social hub and nature lovers find solitude in Pärnu’s sand dunes.

Stay: Standard double rooms at Pärnu Hotel (Rüütli 44) start at €53. (Search all hotels in Pärnu)

Getting there: Pärnu is two and three-quarters hours from Tallinn by train (€7.60).

4. Saaremaa

Saaremaa is the largest island in the West Estonian archipelago. The island is known for its windmills, thatched roofs, churches, oak forest, and – wait for it – a group of meteorite craters. Most visitors reach Saaremaa by ferry from the mainland. Those in a hurry can fly from Tallinn to Kuressaare, its biggest city. (Everything is relative here – Kuressaare only has around 13,000 inhabitants!)

Stay: Kaali Guest Centre (in the village of Kaali) is located right near the meteorite craters and shares space with the Kaali Meteoritics and Limestone Museum. Double rooms begin at €47.

Getting there: You can fly there on Avies airline.

5. Narva

Few tourists come to the border city of Narva. Located across from the Russian town of Ivangorod along the Narva River, Estonia’s third-largest city is an atypical place. Over 80 percent of the population is Russian. Narva has an atmosphere unlike any other city in the country.

Its crown jewel is the 15th-century Hermann Castle (also called Narva Castle), today home to a museum. The popular beach town of Narva-Jõesuu is nearby.

Stay: Inger Hotel (Puškini 28). Admittedly a bit institutional in feel, Inger is nonetheless a safe bet, with rates beginning at €65. (Search all hotels in Narva.)

Getting there: Narva can be reached in two and three-quarters hours from Tallinn (€10.90).

More information

Getting around Estonia: The Estonian train system is very affordable. All of the transportation times listed in this article are via train. Here is the website to find information.

More hotel options: Ready to search more hotels in Estonia? Try our search box above, or click to see all hotels in Estonia.

The post Estonia: 5 great budget destinations (other than Tallinn!) appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Time to think

We are not talking posh cruises here, but thinking rather of the regular ferries that ply the seas and inshore waters of Europe. Boats are a chance to take time out and think. We love boat trips.

It may be a simple hop on a ferry from Calais in France to Dover in England – where shipping stalwarts P&O bring cruise ship luxury to a 90-minute journey which in good weather is a sheer delight. Those famous white cliffs at Dover are quite something. (Read our previous post about P&O’s ferry service from England to France.)

Or it may be the long haul, such as the weekly voyage with the Smyril Line vessel Norröna from Denmark to Iceland. Depending on the time of year, the voyage to Iceland takes two or three days.

Shipping links

Europe is a continent that has been shaped by its maritime heritage and shipping links. Ferries are still a major component of the continent’s transport network, taking heavy freight off crowded highways and allowing discerning travelers a chance to swap the rush of modern life for a few quiet hours on board a comfortable ship.

For many island communities, of course, ferries provide lifeline links to the wider world. And, at this time of year, the weather is quick to remind us of the fragility of those links. This week, for example, shipping services from the Scottish mainland to Shetland, Orkney and the Outer Hebrides have all been heavily disrupted by storms.

Ferry schedules

Sadly, there is no comprehensive guide to Europe’s passenger shipping and ferry routes, but the Thomas Cook European Rail Timetable (ERT) does cover more than just trains. Each monthly edition of this wonderful book includes details of several hundred ferry routes in European waters.

For the majority of these routes, the ERT gives the full schedules but for a few routes it is no more than a tantalizing hint of a connection. The vessels of Bumerang Shipping, the ERT advises, sail irregularly from Yalta (in the Crimea) to Novorossisk (in Russia). The timetable tracks the twice weekly sailings of Siremar to Stromboli, and it waves the flag for the Virtu catamaran to Valletta.

Back in the more familiar waters of western Europe, the ERT gives the schedules for most major ferry routes. But still there are gaps. There is simply no space to include small routes of real character. Kintyre Express runs a year-round passenger link between Campbeltown in Scotland (on the Mull of Kintyre) and Ballycastle (in Northern Ireland). This is a route to clear the head. Life jackets are compulsory as the 11-metre RIB speeds over the North Channel on its two-hour run. Not for everyone, perhaps, but it’s certainly an antidote to the deadening boredom of air travel.

A taste of the sea

On longer journeys around Europe, an overnight hop on a ferry makes perfect sense. Here is our pick of a handful of long routes that run all year round. These are all routes run by leading shipping operators with vessels that offer every possible creature comfort.

Each of these five routes feature in this month’s ERT. But they are just five of a vast range of maritime connections that help keep Europe on the move:

Oslo (Norway) to Kiel (Germany):
Every night — 20 hrs — Color Line — ERT Table 2372

Hirtshals (Denmark) to Bergen (Norway):
Thrice-weekly overnight service — 19 hrs — Fjord Line — ERT Table 2237

Rotterdam (Holland) to Hull (England):
Every night— 12 hrs — P&O — ERT Table 2245

Stockholm (Sweden) to Tallinn (Estonia):
Every night — 16 hrs — Tallink Silja — ERT Table 2475

Civitavecchia (Italy) to Barcelona (Spain):
Nightly ex Sundays — 20 hrs — Grimaldi Lines — ERT Table 2520

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1. St. Peter Line to Russia

The news last week that over 60 ships were trapped in thick ice in the Baltic for some days is probably no great incentive to go and book some ferry trips. But Baltic spring ice does melt–eventually–and this year sees some interesting new options for Baltic travel by ship.

Cypriot-owned St. Peter Line last year launched a thrice-weekly service from Helsinki to St. Petersburg and back. And next month the company expands its offering with twice-weekly sailings from Stockholm to St. Petersburg (on Wednesdays and Saturdays) and a weekly departure from Tallinn to St. Petersburg (on Sundays).

2. Brittany Ferries to Bilbao

French operator Brittany Ferries has long been one of the most adventurous operators in the Western Channel with a raft of routes linking England and Ireland with northwest France. Later this month, the company opens a new service from Portsmouth to Bilbao in Spain, so reviving a long established ferry connection that abruptly disappeared when P&O pulled off the route last September.

Last Saturday, Brittany Ferries also reinstated its Poole to Cherbourg service. This is a very useful short link from England’s south coast to Normandy’s Cotentin peninsula. At the moment, Brittany advertise sailings just to October, so the long-term future of the route is still in doubt.

3. Maltese Connections

Virtu Ferries are one of several operators serving the Maltese market. The company had a welcome dose of free publicity in late February as Virtu’s smart white catamarans were featured on many news reports as the vessels evacuating foreign workers from Libyan ports. Virtu operates a year-round fast-ferry link between Pozzallo in Sicily and Malta. This year the company will also offer a Saturday catamaran service from Catania to Malta, starting on May 7, 2011.

Virtu’s latest Australian-built catamaran hit the headlines in September 2010 when it encountered Somali pirates on its delivery voyage to Malta. Virtu prides itself on speed, and reports say that the pirates were easily outpaced.

4. Scotland-Northern Ireland: Kintyre Express

Not for many years has there been any direct ferry link across the North Channel between the Mull of Kintyre (in western Scotland) and Northern Ireland. The last operator to offer a service was the splendidly named Argyll & Antrim Steam Packet Company which turned out to have rather flaky finances, and the service stopped in 2000.

Now Kintyre Express will fill the gap with a new fast passenger ferry from Campbeltown to Ballycastle. Services start on May 27, 2011. The route will be operated by fast RIBs with a heated cabin, so the 90-minute crossing is surely going to be a whole lot more fun than the average ferry journey. We reserve judgment on whether this is an inspired idea by Colin Craig, the man behind Kintyre Express, or whether perhaps it might be the balmiest idea in the history of European ferry transport.

We hope it is a great success, but Kintyre Express really needs to get its act together in terms of publicity and having a functioning online booking system on its website. This new ferry link creates a raft of new travel opportunities allowing visitors to Kintyre and Islay to make an easy hop over to the most beautiful part of the coast of Northern Ireland. The Antrim Glens and the Giant’s Causeway are both within easy reach of the Ballycastle ferry terminal.

The post European Ferries: 4 interesting new options for 2011 appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

In total over half a million Europeans live on islands in the Baltic region, with four islands each having a population of over 50,000. The latter include Rügen, which is Germany’s largest offshore island. At the other extreme are small communities like the Estonian island of Ruhnu, where no more than a few families overwinter on a remote fragment of land far from civilisation.

The island of Rügen

Rügen is splendid in summer, with its magnificent chalk cliffs, long avenues of horse chestnut trees and beech woods. But let’s face it: the Baltic is no Riviera so don’t go to Rügen if your style is more Saint-Tropez. Brigitte Bardot and Binz would not be natural partners. Yet Rügen has its own appeal, and while the island does not have fiery southern warmth, it does boast enviably long sunshine hours in the summer months.

But in our book, Rügen comes into its own in winter, when the tourist crowds have gone and island life slumbers.

We took time out last week to explore Rügen, our visit happily coinciding with the first substantial snowfall of the winter. Autumnal beech woods morphed overnight from red to white, and the steam trains that chug every hour through eastern Rügen seemed to puff even harder than usual in the cold weather.

Rügen’s eastern end

Our favourite corner of Rügen is the island’s easternmost extremity, an area of shallow bays and long peninsulas called Mönchgut. To really get away from it all, head for Klein Zicker, a little village with that end-of-the-world feel, where almost every house lets out rooms to visitors.

The sole hotel in the village, called Zum Trauten Fischerheim, has discount winter rates that, for stays of two nights and more, effectively bundle in dinner for free as part of an all-inclusive dinner, bed and breakfast package.

If Klein Zicker is too remote for your tastes, try chic Sellin, well placed on the steam railway east of Binz. The town boasts what we think is probably the finest pier anywhere in the Baltic region. In Sellin, our favorite spot to linger is the Pension Tatjana, which brings a dash of Russian (or more correctly Belarusian) flair to Sellin. Tatjana hails from Vitebsk and her Sellin guesthouse is a Rügen instititution. On cold winter days, the little Russian-style café on the ground floor of the guesthouse seems like the cosiest place on earth.

Getting there

Rügen is easy to reach, for the island is linked to the German mainland by both a new road bridge and a causeway that carries a rail line. Direct trains from Berlin and Hamburg to Binz, a popular summer resort on the Rügen coast, take just four hours.

The island is also served by seasonal ferry services from the German mainland, the neighboring island of Usedom (which is part German and part Polish territory) and from the Danish island of Bornholm. Rügen also enjoys year-round ferry links with Sweden, Lithuania, Russia and the German island of Hiddensee.

The post Baltic Briefing: The Island of Rügen appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

A Russian Journey

The real adventure, however, starts the following Saturday, January 24, when I’ll be flying to St. Petersburg, Russia. I’ll spend eight days in the culture-rich city, sleeping at a friend’s apartment. As the St. P. visit will be mostly vacation, I haven’t decided whether or not to do a “mini-guide” to the city’s budget hotels, although I’ll certainly write some blog posts.

I had originally decided to follow St. Petersburg with a quick two-day trip to Moscow. I posted last month about the difficulties I experienced in finding an affordable hotel in the Russian capital and asked for advice. Readers responded — mostly directly to me via email, with very helpful suggestions.

The Moscow hotel search

I had some demands: As I will be traveling with a computer and a couple suitcases, I wanted something more secure than a hostel. As I’ll be hitting the road on my own and don’t speak Russian or read Cyrillic (yet), I wanted to find a hotel that was easy to find. And as much as I love B&Bs and small pensions, those in Moscow that I found didn’t have any user reviews. The thought of buzzing up to an unverified apartment in Moscow gave me the chills.

Every central hotel I could find, however, charged more than $300 per night. The room rates were simply outlandish. Seriously, if you want a good laugh, do a quick search and see what you come up with!

I rejoiced on January 1 when I found a “small single” room in the Kebur Palace, a 4-star hotel, for about $155 a night. I booked it right away on a Russian hotel reservation website. My celebration was cut short, however, when the agency emailed me a “reservation declination” stating that, in fact, the hotel didn’t really have the “small single” available for my dates, but did have a “superior single” for $285 a night available… Throw in Moscow’s steep hotel tax, and the total came out to about $672 for a two-night stay.

I told them, nyet, it was simply too expensive.

They wrote back with another “affordable” option, the Peking Hotel. The Peking is a well-known 3-star hotel, built in 1955 and sports an impressive Communist exterior. Today it offers renovated rooms of both “standard” and “deluxe” categories. The reservation service offered a single for $190 a night. I wasn’t happy, but it was far cheaper than any other central hotel I had found. With tax, the total came to $450. Ugh.

Yet… it wasn’t really a reservation. My “request” had to be confirmed by the hotel. That should have taken a day. Five days have passed and still no confirmation. No word. No hotel.

And that’s where I find myself today, dear reader. I admit it, Moscow has proven to be a bigger challenge than I expected.

The solution?

I called Continental Airlines this morning and was told I could change my flight for $150. I’m seriously considering dropping the Moscow adventure altogether, and instead heading to Tallinn, Estonia from St. Petersburg. Tallinn is already known as a budget-friendly destination with its own rich history.

I could spend several days in Tallinn for a fraction of the cost of the Moscow hotel alone, and even put together a “mini-guide” while I’m there!

What do you think?

Should I make the most of  Moscow or drop it and head for Tallinn? Please leave your comments and advice. At this point, I’m open to anything! Thanks!

The post Planning: Paris and St. Petersburg, done. Moscow, well… appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.