Border Crossing … and now we explore the Baltic Countries

We ride in Poland to the final end of the country. Nothing that let us know about their neighbours, neither Russia nor Lithuania. Does not matter.

Our GPS directs us safely over the border to Lithuania. It is each time exciting to cross the border. We change the last Zlotys (polish currency) in bars and yoghurt, leave the maps on the last info point of the Green Velo for further use. We are curious what is different in the new countries. We are talking about Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. They belonged until 1991 to the Soviet Union. In the early years of this century they are now members of the European Union. (That is why we have noticed that in Poland they were not mentioned on the traffic signs.)

We have been positively impressed. We ride through the landscape with mostly fields and farms. There are three cows. They are milked. Big cans are nearby. This is never seen in Germany or West Europe. From time to time a house. We see only a few people. Some cars are on the street only. Shops more or less do not exist. In the next days we ride sometimes 40 or 50 kilometres without any opportunity to buy something. That means ‘sparsely populated’. People are open and friendly. They are happy to see us. Some toot, and we can talk to each other, because a lot of them speak english. Great! That is the advantage of little countries.

The gallery shows typical wood houses which reminds us of Astrid Lindgren’s famous books of the children in South Sweden. It is not a museum. You find them overall in the Baltics.

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Tim and Tracy are the first couple we have met who does a similar project than we. They are already two month in Europe. Unexpectively they have to leave after three months, because of the visum validity. But they have arranged themselves. They will continue in North America, enjoying the Indian Summer. …. And we will visit them when we will be in the Staates 🙂

Kaunas, Lithuania

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100 km flat without a stop, awesom landscape with much farmland, forest and nearly no villages. Signs which warn of elks (without elks) and great roads. For us passionated mountainbikers and globetrotters a bit boring. We miss the mountains!

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We pass Latvia with tailwind on our most lengthly daily trip of 190 kilometres to Riga. Riga is the capital of Latvia with a medieval old city.

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Further to Tallinn, capital of Estonia. Which city is more beautiful? Both are visited by cruises.

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Traffic

And while we are blogging on our last day in Estonia, on a camp site 20 kilometres from Tallin, we are entertained by live local folk music and in front of us we see the northern sun set.