Road trip to Latvia and Lithuania part1.

My girlfriend was reading a travel journal and found an article about the best beaches in Europe. At that time we were thinking where to go on our summer vacation. When she popped the idea of making a road trip to Latvia and Lithuania, I almost fell out from the chair. "Old Soviet countries, what is she thinking?" was my first reaction. The Mafia stealing peoples cars and pickpockets helping you to get rid of your money at least.

After the first shock I decided to dive into the fantastic world of internet, and started to scroll different discussion forums searching peoples experiences about these countries. After few hours my mind started to settle down, and I was getting good vibes about this idea. This really could be a cool trip.

So it was time to plan the trip. At first we decided that the trip should last at least two weeks. After we decided the exact departure day, we checked out the availability of the ferries from Helsinki to Tallinn. So far so so good, plenty of free seats. After that we figured out the route. It would be Tallinn-Jürmala-Liepaja-Klaipeda-Vilnius-Riga-Pärnu-Tallinn. The idea was to have at least two days per each place. The first leg to Jürmala was little too much driving for one day so we decided to take one more pit stop near Cesis. The plan was there, so now we just had to wait for the departure day to come.

The d-day kept coming, and a few days before the packing started. I personally wanted to go as light as possible and managed to get my clothes and stuff in one big bag. Besides that, I had my camera gear in one backpack, and took a second back pack for day trips. My gf isn't just like me on this matter... The trunk of my Ford Focus was fully loaded the morning we left home, heading towards the harbour.

The trip started great as we almost missed our ferry, thanks to the road works just outside the harbour. Normally you should check-in your car at least an hour before departure, we checked-in twenty minutes before the ferry took off. An we weren't even the last ones to arrive the check-in. Oh well, we got in and headed for the prepaid breakfast. That was something I wouldn't recommend to anyone. It just wasn't worth the 10€. The quality of food was poor and selection was very narrow.

Two hours after departure, we were at the car deck waiting the bow doors to open. I set up my GPS and entered the first pit-stop location near Cesis. The first leg was 289 kilometers and little over four hours of driving. We drove the E67 road to the border of Latvia. The road was mainly in pretty good condition, but what I really missed was overtaking lanes every now and then. The speedlimit was 100km/h at maximum.

We crossed the Latvian border near Ainazi and the road changed name to A1. That really was just the name of the road, because it was mostly in terrible condition. There was huge dents and holes in the road and so I drove most of the time 80km/h rather than 90 or 100km/h. And here the Baltic driving culture started to really show. Overtaking is the name of the game. You just have to overtake the car driving in front of you. Of course the locals didn't care for the speedlimits. Before they went by, they were hangin right on your tail, peeking every now and then for the "right" moment to come. Their right time to overtake is just about everywhere. No matter if it's forbidden, they'll do it in a curve or an intersection. You really have to pay attention when driving in the Baltic countries, because someone might be coming towards you on your own lane in place you wouldn't normally expect it. If you just keep your head up, there will be no problems.

Late afternoon we arrived to our first nights cottage. It was really nice place and had the Brasla river flowing right nex to it. Quickly checked out the cottage and then we headed out to scout the surroundings by car. After that we went to the local grocerie store to by some dinner and breakfast. When the night started to fall, we headed into the sauna, and after that it was time to hit the hay. Day 1 of our trip was behind.

To be continued...