Out of Town Excursions

We have had two days staying put in Riga and done a couple of bike trips from here.

One was to the Baltic Sea resort town of Jurmala where Russian tourists come in droves over the summer months. The other was to a National Park which included a castle stop, a cave stop and a bicycle museum.

Hard packed sand, which is quite good to ride on. When the children made sand castles it looked like mud. The sea is a brown (beer) colour, really cold and no one was swimming. Where the water gets trapped behind small sand bars at low tide it is smelly. Give us Whangamata any day.

At Jurmala beach there is street after street of palatial homes of varing age and design owned by wealthy Russians. You would pay the equivalent of $NZ 600,000 - 700,000. 

A small group of us chose not to bus back to Riga and added another 25km onto our day mostly through wooded cycle paths. It was great except for this 'mossie biting' photo stop.

Fields and fields of barley. Our group spread out around the bend.

There are plenty of castles to be found in this part of the world.

We visited a bicycle museum which is a private collection of a bicycle repairer. He had the most amazing collection of mainly Latvian bikes. He had a shop and worshop display from a previous era, photos of medal winning racers and dressed soldiers with their bikes kitted up for war. 

Check out this wooden bike.

Riga Wanderings

Riga, the capital of Latvia is hosting the Song Games. There are choirs of all ages from around the world flooding this place with song. Everywhere you go you hear the choirs from inside churches, halls, museums, practice rooms and on the street.

We are staying in the middle of the Old Town surrounded by magnificent buildings. Many of them renovated after being damaged or left derelict during the Russian occupation. 

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These hangars were used by the Germans to make Zepplin airships. Now it's the Central Market.

A couple of buskers playing Pokarekare Ana.

A Day on the Spit

It was a longer day on the bikes today. 60km in temperatures in the high twenties, clear blue skies, but thank goodness a sea breeze. As always on a bike, it was a head wind.

The miles we clocked up were on the Curonian Spit, a 98km Unesco-protected stretch of sand. 

Legend tells of a (very large in size) daughter of a fisherman took sand in her apron to help the fisherman having difficulties in the wild weather of the Baltic Sea and deposited the sand which created a lagoon. (Now that is the extreme Readers Digest version of the story).

 

We started with a visit to an Amber museum/shop/gallery to hear about Baltic amber. Amber drink is made from sitting alcohol in small chips of amber for at least a month. Just what a girl needs is a sip of this before getting on the bike. One of its qualities is to enhance the production of family life. Only a minuscule amount needed for David here.

Being an area with a long history of fishing villages there are many signs of the past. These now ornamental weather vanes were once found on the masts of fishing boats. The colours indicated the village a fisherman was from and the more ornate carvings told a story of his life.

This spit has some of the highest drifting sand dunes in Europe. Our English speaking group returns from the top of one of the dunes where 4 villages are buried underneath. Between the 17-19th centuries the village moved 4 times because of the drifting sand dune.

A walk up and down the hill of witches where carvings on oak trunks tell of fairy stories on the way up. This carving is the first one, the story teller. And on the way down are the darker stories with carvings of dragons, bad witches, ogres and other creatures.

There were miles of great asphalt cycle paths through the pine forests that made for cooler shady cycling.

This has been a day to work up an appetite and earn a long nights sleep.

On Our Bikes

At long last we're on our way. The weather is fabulous and looking that way for at least the week ahead. Temperatures are pleasantly comfortable in the mid-20s plus.

We have two guides. Vaida is English speaking for five of us. Two Americans, one Dutch and us. Inga is German speaking (with very good English as well). She has a group of two Austrians, two Swiss and thirteen Germans.

We will be cycling 30 - 60km each day and travelling by coach and/or ferries for part of the day, with sightseeing along the way.

We're off to a good start tasting local dishes and sampling some of the locally produced beers. Thank goodness we have the bikes to help work some of it off.

Getting ready to go.

We visited a castle so famous it's photo is on the front cover of the Lonely Planet.

Our guides Inga and Vaida. We're heading to the Baltic Coast and made a stop by the bridge that connects the borders of Lithuania and Russia (Kalininagrad).

A lunch stop with typical Lithuanian fare. I couldn't imagine drinking hot pink-coloured soup, but this cold beetroot soup was rather tasty. It's served with potatoes and in the soup were fine shreds of beetroot and hard boiled egg. The other dish are known as Zepplins. Each one was filled with curd or meat, covered in a case of grated potatoes and boiled. Let's say the beetroot soup was the winner on the day.

It's nesting time for storks in this part of the world and there are plenty to be seen.

Ferry crossing to the Curonian Spit. An extremely long sand dune of about 70kms that we're about to ride the length of.

Our great driver, Vaidas, loading up the bikes.

Vilnius Wanderings

Before our cycle began we had a day wandering around the old town of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. This is a country that's been under the rule of Poland, Prussia, Germany and more recently, Russia. They have only been independent since 1991.

In 1989 2 million people linked arms in a 600km human chain connecting the three capitals of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia protesting about the Russian occupation of their counties. This footprint cast of the mayor's feet mark one end oF the chain. (The feet of the English speaking group, plus our guide, Vaida).

This sculpture above one of the local theatres, towers very impressively above pedestrians walking past.

One of the walls in Literary Street. The plaques and decorated tiles recognise Lithuanian poets and authors throughout history.

While out for an early morning walk we puzzled over this large ball hanging from under a bridge. We had all sorts of reasons why it might be there. Apparently it's a piece of 'Art'.

Inside the cathedral is a chapel where people come and pray for good health and healing. If their prayers come true they return to place a votive on the wall. Look closely and you'll see such votives as arms, legs and hearts which they hang depending on the particular condition that has caused them problems.

Next blog, we'll be on our bikes.

Song Festival

Sometimes we get it lucky and come across an unexpected local event. Our first day in Vilnius was no exception.

Lithuania holds an annual Song Festival where choirs, folk ensembles, dance groups, schools, universities and other Lithuanian groups from around the world come together in celebration.

With the country's population of 3.3 million (535,000 living in Vilnius), I believe nearly every man and his dog must have been here.

It is such a colourful, musical extravaganza.

Arrived in the Baltic

After 3 flights, 27 hours in the air, 5 immigration stops (frisked at 2 of them), the passport is stamped to prove we made it and we have local currency. Now, we can sit in this very balmy summer evening and enjoy a spot of the local brew.