Blogs from Latvia, Europe - page 23

We fiinally realised that we weren't going to get any sleep around ten. We got up and packed our bags. After paying for the hostel, we went to the bus station and bought our ticket to Liepaja. They were approximately £9 for both of us. The journey to Liepaja was very slow because we got stuck behind the worlds longest military convoy. This was interesting for a while as It had about 30 vehicles including artillery guns. However our driver became increasingly wreckless the more agitated he became. He was like a man on a suicide mission which was funny because a song we heard a few times was about someone being "suicidal he was suicidal". Liepaja was rather quiet and the tourist information was so far from the bus station. Some guy offered to show ... read more

We got up today around ten and we did so in the quietest way possible. I thought that people would be up and eager to go, but they were all still sleeping. We went and bought our tickets to Sigulda. It’s a scenic place over an hour from Riga with a national park next to it. Before we got on the bus we nipped to the central market to grab something for breakfast. We ended up with a litre of fruit juice and a massive bunch of grapes. The journey was long, and the bus we were on was very bumpy and shakey. We got to Sigulda around twelve and we set off in the rain to see what was there. We didn't have a map or any real idea of what was there, so we ... read more

We’ve spent the last couple of weeks cycling the Baltic Sea Coast, and stopping to relax on its beautiful white sand beaches in between Nida and Riga. Nida is on the Curonian spit, a small strip of land covered in forest and sand dunes. This Unesco region is shared between Russian owned Kalingrad and Lithuania. From Nida you can’t walk more than a kilometre south over the dunes without meeting Russian border guards with machine guns (apparently!). The villages are built on sand dunes and due to shifting sands many villages on the spit have been buried several times in the past. The old method of housing meant that the local people would retrieve their buried home from under the dune and relocate to a new and more suitable location (not sure what they would do ... read more

Left for our bus at 7am, not really wanting to be there after our last bus trip. But this journey was so much easier, scenery not much different to Poland and time just flew by. Arrived in Riga at 11.30am, it was cold and the wind was a howling. With jackets on we proceeded to find our hostel, the alleged 5 minute trek turned into 30 minutes and with our heavy backpacks it was hard going.... Wind swept and knackered we arrived, dumped our stuff and collapsed in a heap..... Later after going out to eat, we returned to find we were sharing our room with Angelo the Italian Stallion from Rome!!! I was a bit wary but "Skim" didn't mind too much, I wonder why? After a good nights sleep we went armed with camera ... read more