6 Tage Baltikum / 6 days Baltic States

Mo. 14.08.2023

Shortly after midnight we arrived in Tallinn and spent the night at the harbour. After breakfast we left on foot to visit the old town. As we always do, we googled the rough data about the country. Estonia is a bit bigger than Switzerland, but actually has only 1.3 million inhabitants. The capital city of Tallinn is home to around 430,000 of them. We spent the day strolling up and down the streets, looking at the most popular buildings and monuments, eating ice cream. We also walked out to the new harbour where the big cruise ships would arrive.

Early in the evening we decided that we had seen the most important things in the city and wanted to move on. Attentive readers of this blog may have noticed by now that we are not necessarily the big city people. To get out of the city, we passed the train station, and this neighbourhood seemed to be pretty lively, with lots of colorful restaurants, bars and cultural centres. I think it would have been a great place to stay. So, if any of you travel there, let us know what it was like.

After an hour's drive, we arrived at a place called Padise and spent the night in a parking lot for a hiking trail. By the way, in the Baltic States, it is also allowed to camp freely, as long as you follow the most common rules.

Tue 15.08.2023

We quickly realised that Estonia is not a densely populated country, because here too we were often in the woods. But Estonia has definitely more agriculture, so we had a slightly more varied view of the landscape.

Our first stop this day was Keibu Beach. The weather was sensational and it was a pleasure to walk barefoot on this sandy beach. But there was more than one catch: the sea was full of little jellyfish. And we're not exaggerating when we say 'full'. Google said that this kind of jellyfish doesn't burn, and there were some people in the water, but we didn't bring our bathing gear anyway. The other drawback were the ants. The beach was littered with these creatures, and you couldn't stand for a minute without them crawling up your leg.

For lunch we went to the next small place called Nova. The local restaurant offered three lunch menus and for a whopping 9 euros (!) total we ate a delicious, well portioned lunch.

Because the country was so small, we drove another hour to Haapsalu, washed the van from top to bottom and spent the rest of the day at the campsite Pikseken.

Wed 16.08.2023

In the morning we explored the small town of Haapsalu with its bishop's castle from the 13th century. The west of Estonia is said to be very reminiscent of Sweden, since it belonged to it for a long time. Estonia has many pretty colourful wooden houses, often strung together in the village. During lunch we decided to skip the islands in the west and continue to the south. After all, we were already the third day in Estonia and have only 1.5 weeks left. “Only”… it was not long ago, we had 1.5 months left, or even three months. How fast time passes.

So, we drove 1.5 hours south, passed beautiful villages with well-kept gardens and churches made of red bricks and finally landed in Soomaa National Park. There we did a small walk through the swamps. Here there were mainly flies, bumblebees and dragonflies. It was interesting to see clearly the boundary between forest and bog.

When it was time for dinner we went to the city of Pärnu for dinner and a digestive walk. But we spent the night just outside the city right on the beach.

Thu 17.08.2023

Now it was time for Latvia. The border was only half an hour's drive away from our sleeping place and we drove over it unnoticed. Another hour's drive later we arrived at the beach of Saulkrasti. A huge beautiful beach, with an 18-metre-high overgrown dune with a 4-kilometre-long wooden board path. It was beautiful to walk here, up on the trail and barefoot right in the sea on the soft sand. The water was rather cold and the wind was also strong.

After we had enough of dabbling our feet and had lunch, we drove on to the capital Riga. From our point of view Latvia was not much different from Estonia. But, in every case very beautiful. A few more facts for you: With 64,594 square kilometres, Latvia is much bigger than its northern neighbour, but it has only 1.8 million inhabitants. The country has four national parks and over 700 protected nature areas, and is home to countless wild animals, even the brown bear is slowly returning.

Riga has 600,000 inhabitants, making it the largest city in the Baltic region. The city is famous for its Art Nouveau buildings (but don't ask us about them, we don't know anything about this) and its well-preserved Old Town, which we liked very much. What we noticed were the few tourists. From the other cities and especially from home we know something completely different, but it was so pleasant to walk around Riga without large groups of tourists. Apropos few tourists: you remember our stay at the campsite Koli Freetime in Finland? When we asked the guy at the reception what time the check-out is, he said not to worry about that, as the high season is already over. And that was at the beginning of August. Hopefully Sarah’s parents in Lauterbrunnen won’t faint after reading this.

We stayed in Riga until sunset, but decided to leave the city for the night. Not because we felt insecure, but because it's easier and quieter.

Fri 18.08.2023

Ten minutes from our sleeping place was a gas station where we could use the shower for 3 Euros. On our long journey we have already used many public showers and it may surprise you, but we have never come across anything disgusting or anything like that, we always had reasonably clean showers with reasonably warm water. The only cold shower so far (apart from the saunas) we had at the Metal Festival in Finland and believe us, that one was a blessing.

Anyway, we said goodbye to Latvia after 24 hours. There would definitely be a lot to see here too, but as we already mentioned, time was starting to rush.

The border with Lithuania is the river Nemunelis and we passed it without even realizing it. Even the 'Republic of Lithuania' board was hidden behind bushes. After a total of 2 hours’ drive we stopped at a petrol station for an ice cream and a briefing on the situation. It was already 2 p.m. and it would take another two hours to get to the capital Vilnius. And visiting a city at 4 p.m. at over 30 degrees is not so much fun. So, we decided to look for a spot by a lake and found it in the Labanoro Regional Park. On Google Maps and also on the (very bumpy) road we saw camping signs and followed them. Over a forest path with big tree roots we finally got to a great place in the forest right by the lake. There were different open shelters with barbecue areas, tables and benches and probably also a dry toilet. And it was all for free. There was a lot going on for a Friday night, families with kids camping here. The atmosphere was really very peaceful and relaxed, except for a couple opposite us. The wife had some kind of problem, don't ask us, but what she was screaming around and scolding with her husband and listening to some loud music. That was the only negative point of the whole evening. The man came over to ask us something, but we didn't even get along with our feet and hands. Until well after midnight, the woman was still roaring loudly in the area, despite the fact that all the other visitors were already asleep. We thought about saying something, but we didn't want trouble with people if you couldn't understand each other's words. Well, otherwise it was really great here!

Sat 19.08.2023

During the time of the midnight sun in the far north we shifted our sleep rhythm into the night by a few hours. We decided to get back into a more or less 'Swiss' rhythm in the two weeks after Finland, so we actually got up at 08:30 a.m. which was quite early for us. By the way, the night was very warm and we would have slept with the side door open for the first time on the trip. But because the shrill lady from next door chased everyone to hell, we closed the door again at one o'clock in the morning.

Now we drove the 1.5 hours to Vilnius. Here are the mandatory data: With 65,300 km2 and 2.7 million inhabitants, Lithuania is the largest state in the Baltic region. And for what we have seen so far, it is also the most beautiful for us. Lithuania is flatter than the sea, but it has a lot of agriculture and, similar to its Baltic friends, many beautiful villages with well-kept farms. We found a free parking space near the railway station (let this sink in: Free parking in the city centre of a capital city…). Vilnius was almost empty compared to the other capitals. And it was Saturday after all. Perhaps it was because it was very warm. Vilnius is a Roman Catholic city, as one might notice from the more than 50 (!) churches in the city. It is considered the Rome of the East. It is also one of the oldest university cities in Europe. It has almost 570,000 inhabitants.

By the way, we also tried the local cuisine here. With 'Cepelinai' we were served potato dumplings filled with minced meat topped with bacon and sour cream. We also tried the homemade drink 'Kvass', which is somehow made with bread and somewhat reminiscent of honey wine (Met). This was in the restaurant 'Berneliu Uzeiga', the menu is full of traditional meals.

As usual for us, we left the city behind in the late afternoon and headed towards Poland.

In the parking lot in Vilnius Lukas noticed that the brake line at the rear right must have leaked. We decided to drive a little and buy brake fluid at a petrol station. But since he noticed the leak while driving, we only went as far as a town called Marijampole, ate there very delicious sushi and then Lukas wanted to fix the brake line in the parking lot. However, it's not really possible on the ground with only half the right tools and he was already full of dirt and brake fluid within minutes. But what should we have done on a Saturday night at 9 p.m.? Carrying on with this problem was definitely not a smart idea. Suddenly, a man drove by us in his car and asked what the problem was and offered his garage with a lift. Luke didn't think twice and accepted the offer. Less than five minutes later, we were standing in the garage with the man named Paul. For 45 minutes, the two of them worked on the brake line until it was patched up. At first Paul didn't want to accept payment, but we couldn't let it be on us either. What man offers a garage to strangers on a Saturday night, helps to fix the problem and doesn't even want anything in return… we are forever grateful to Paul.

So, when it was already dark, we could drive easy minded for the last half hour to the Polish border. After a short paper check from the border guards, we drove to the border parking lot and were able to take a free hot shower at 10:30 pm. Not bad, right? Welcome to Poland!