A2 - What is a Smart City

🚆  Budapest, Warsaw, Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn

Activities

We started our journey with a long train ride, where we played games, talked, planned the days ahead, and slowly got to know each other better along the way.

On the first day of activities, we fully dived into the theme of our journey by exploring the smart side of the city. Besides walking around Budapest and observing how the city functions, we had the chance to visit Gábor Dénes University and learn more about smart city concepts, innovation, and how companies cooperate with public institutions and urban structures. We attended presentations, watched drone-flying demonstrations, and even got the chance to try flying them ourselves, which made the experience much more interactive and fun.

Later in the day, we visited the Parliament, one of the city’s most impressive architectural symbols, before heading to a VR park to explore the digital side of entertainment and technology. We ended the day by bonding through an escape room experience with a digital twist, testing our teamwork, communication, and problem-solving skills together.

Next day, we get into a loooong train ride, and we used the time in a simple and relaxed way. We enjoyed the journey, played games, took photos, filled out our journals, and talked with each other.

We also started planning our time —sharing ideas about what we want to see and do next. In between, there were quiet moments too, just listening to music or looking out the window.

After arriving in Warsaw, we had a well-deserved dinner together, spending time to unwind, talk, and connect after the journey, while also getting ready for another long travel day ahead.

Next stop — Riga. We leave early from the accommodation and head to Warszawa Centralna Station to start the long travel day along the Warsaw–Vilnius–Riga route. Since the last part is by bus, it becomes a full day on the move, with arrival in the evening.

During the journey, we treat the trip as a kind of moving classroom. We reflect on everything we’ve experienced so far, talk about our favorite moments, and share impressions from different cities. At the same time, we start planning for Riga—what we want to see, what we’re curious about, and how we want to spend our time there. We also use different apps and tools along the way for navigation, transport, communication, and documentation, which helps us stay organized as a group and handle all the connections and transfers.

In between, we do a mix of activities and downtime— group games, taking photos, short conversations, and also quiet moments with music or just looking out the window.

In Riga, we start both days with simple routines together—waking up, and having breakfast as a group. It sets a good rhythm for the day before heading out to explore the city. The first day is spent walking through Riga with stops that mix culture, history, and everyday life. We visit the Central Market, where we think about food systems and how the space evolved from old hangars into a busy urban market, we also visit the Laima Chocolate Museum. In Old Riga, we walk past key landmarks like the House of the Blackheads, Dome Cathedral, St. James’s Cathedral, seeing how history is still present in the city.

After Riga, we continue our journey toward Tallinn. The train ride gives us time to slow down a bit, reflect on the experiences so far, and prepare for the next city ahead. During the trip, we go through the Tallinn program together, plan what we want to explore, and make sure all the important apps and digital tools are ready for navigation, transport, and discovering the city more easily. Between planning, there’s still time for conversations, photos, music, and simply enjoying the journey together.

In Tallinn, we spend the days exploring one of Europe’s most digital and forward-thinking cities. From the start, it’s easy to notice how technology is integrated into everyday life in a simple and practical way. Moving through the city on electric scooters, we explore both the historic center and the more modern areas of Tallinn, experiencing how accessible and connected the city feels. Along the way, we notice small smart-city details everywhere — digital services, efficient public spaces, self-service systems, and even robots cutting the grass in public parks.

We spend time in creative areas like Telliskivi Creative City and Noblessner Port, where old industrial spaces have been transformed into modern cultural hubs. We also visit the Seaplane Harbour Navy Museum, where interactive exhibits, technology, and maritime history come together in a really engaging way.

Later, we try a VR experience that lets us explore digital storytelling and immersive technology in a hands-on way, adding another layer to the smart-city theme of the day. At Viru Keskus and other public areas, we observe how digital infrastructure supports daily life without taking away from the city’s atmosphere. In Kadriorg Park we took the chance to relax a bit after so many visits.

For us Tallinn feels modern, organized, and surprisingly calm — a city where technology blends naturally into the environment and daily routines.

After Tallinn, we continue toward Vilnius with another long train travel day. By this point, we’re a bit tired, and carrying luggage between stations makes it feel even more like a real travel stretch, but also part of the experience.

On the train, we take it slow — resting, looking out the window, and switching between sleep, music, and short conversations. We also reflect a bit on Tallinn and start getting ready for Vilnius, checking the apps we’ll need and what we want to see there.

It’s a calm in-between day: a mix of tiredness, quiet moments, some planning, and just being together on the move before arriving in the next city.

We begin exploring the city at the Vilnius Portal, a digital installation that acts as a “visual bridge” connecting people in different cities and countries in real time. It feels like a simple but powerful way of showing cultural exchange through technology. From there, we continue through the city, including visits to key landmarks like Vilnius Cathedral Basilica, its Bell Tower, and nearby historic structures such as the Brick Tower.

The route continues through the National Library of Lithuania, where we look at how knowledge, culture, and digital tools come together in one space. We also visit the Cathedral of the Theotokos and the Church of St. Philip and James, noticing the diversity of religious and architectural heritage in the city.

A highlight of the day is the VR experience “Virtual Journey through the World of Waste,” where we explore environmental issues through immersive storytelling and digital technology. We also take time to walk through the historic center, including Pilies Street and Gediminas surroundings, experiencing how the city blends everyday life with heritage spaces.

We start the second day in Vilnius with a relaxed stop at Cat Café Vilnius in the morning, taking a calm moment to ease into the day. After that, we visit the Energy and Technology Museum, where interactive exhibits show how energy, innovation, and sustainable technologies work in practice, giving us a hands-on learning experience.

The rest of the day is spent exploring the city more informally, just observing Vilnius as we walk through different areas and noticing how its infrastructure, public spaces, and everyday life connect.

Another long travel day back to Warsaw, this time with more time to actually explore the city once we arrive. We spend most of the journey on the train moving between reflection, rest, and planning — looking back at Vilnius, sharing impressions, and slowly shifting our focus to Warsaw. There’s also time to relax, talk, and just enjoy the rhythm of the trip before another stop.

We begin at the Palace of Culture and Science, taking in the scale of the building and how it represents both history and modern identity in the city. From there, we move through different parts of Warsaw, including a stop at a sweets factory, where we get a lighter, more interactive look at local production and everyday urban industry. We continue with a stop at the Partisan Monument, taking a quiet moment to reflect on memory and history in the urban landscape. Later, we visit the Melt Museum, experiencing contemporary and immersive digital art installations that connect technology with creativity.

A highlight of the day is the rooftop garden of the Warsaw University Library, where we take time to relax and see the city from above, surrounded by one of the most interesting green spaces in Warsaw. Then the route takes us to Wilanów Palace, exploring its gardens and architecture while also seeing how history, culture, and landscape design come together in one place.

The last travel day was quite exhausting, as we made our way from Warsaw to Budapest and then continued on to Miercurea Ciuc. By that point, the tiredness had really built up, and most of the time on the train we ended up just sleeping and resting. Even though it was a long and tiring journey, it still felt worth it looking back on everything we had experienced along the way.

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