Archived:PlanB
B for Baltic, not to be confused with Balkan.
White nights 2015 runs 23 May - 10 June. Or 11 June - later. Or 22 June - 25 June (that's the film festival anyway?). Ballet and Opera apparently runs 28 May - 27 July? Scarlet sails are allegedly June 23?
We should be able to avoid Rev's wedding on July 25th.
So, Plan: A trip from June 13 - June 28, with much of the second week in St Petersburg.
The ferry from St Petersburg to Stockholm is every 4 days, so rather irregular :(. But St Petersburg - Helsinki is almost daily, overnight (depart 19:00, arrive 08:00). Alternately, high-speed trains.
Helsinki - Stockholm: daily ferries, or overnight ones.
So, working backwards:
Sunday 28th: If Copenhagen-Cologne sleeper is still running, day in Cologne, then an afternoon/evening Eurostar home. Otherwise, day in Paris, that being the only place one can get a decent overnight train to from Hamburg.
Saturday 27th: Day in Copenhagen, or possibly Hamburg. If no Copenhagen-Cologne sleeper, then leave at 15:42 on the train to Hamburg (train ferry! woo). Urgh, no dice, that gets in after the sleeper leaves for Paris. Well, figure something out. Worst case we take the Hamburg-Cologne or Hamburg-Amsterdam sleeper, assuming those still exist.
Friday 26th: Day in Stockholm, then sleeper train to Malmö (arrives 5:45), and a follow-on train to somewhere more interesting (Copenhagen, or Hamburg via the train ferry).
Thursday 25th: Day in Helsinki, then 17:02 train to Turku and overnight ferry to Stockholm. Or a direct ferry leaving at 17:00 (arriving at 9:30 rather than 6:30).
Wednesday 24th: Last day in St Petersburg, then high speed train to Helsinki. Last one is the 20:25 arriving 23:01 (or possibly 22:01, DST shennanigans).
And working forwards:
Friday 12th: Overnight ferry to Amsterdam
Saturday 13th: Day in Amsterdam, overnight train to Warsaw. (Or Prague, then Krakow, then Lviv?)
Sunday 14th: Day in Warsaw, overnight train to... probably has to be Minsk? (Or Kiev, if the gang finds that acceptable) The Kaliningrad train doesn't seem to be running any more, nor the Vilnus one :(.