Items tagged with Latvia

2008-07-06 00:00:00
Written By: Billy van Graan

Click on an image to enlarge it and then browse the larger images with the Next and Previous buttons at the bottom right. This contains all the photos from the updates we did. Just makes it easier than to go to every single article to check the photos.

Flying and Netherlands

Germany

Poland

Lithuania

Latvia

Estonia

Russia

2008-06-21 00:00:00
Written By: Claudine du Plessis

Rest Day
Distance: 0km

Reinis woke us up with a delicious breakfast of ommelettes and soft baby potatoes. He used to be chef, so really enjoys cooking, as much as we enjoy eating. He then took us to an outdoors museum of Latvian architecture and history. The houses, buildings, windmills, churches and barns that Latvians built over the ages are all preserved there in a kind of a small town. There are so many trees in Latvia, so the main building material is of course wood. The people walked around in traditional Latvian clothes.

Afterward, we went to his friend's house in Riga and had another famous Reinis water pipe while chatting to the people there. His friend had a couple Couch Surfers there, they were all on their way to a Couch Surfing camp. One guy there was very funny, from France, he told us he made money by his own "big brother" website - placing a webcam in his home and walking around naked. We then did some sightseeing in Riga and had a take away meal of a type of Ravioli.

Back at Little Paradise, it was time for sauna session. His brother was the expert, he briefed us on the whole process: First time we go into the sauna for 5 minutes to warm up. Then a little break. Then back in again for 10 minutes, with more water on the rocks. The third session, he put on his special cap to keep his head cool and we each had a turn to go in for a treatment. You lie down on the bench with your face in branches (nice smelling tree leaves) soaked in cool water to make breathing easier. He then does this ritual where he takes branches, dip them in the hot water and hits your body with it. The vitamins from the branches supposed to enter your skin. After every „spanking”, more water gets poured onto the stones (Tip: never scream „water! Water!” in the sauna, they don´t bring it in glass). It is said to be very healthy, but it was also unbelievably hot and each us were screaming as we lay there being hit by boiling branches. After the session, you run out of the sauna, don`t even think twice about getting into a slide they have at the sauna door, sliding straight into the lake. When you get out of the lake, you feel light headed, but about an hour later is hard to describe how refreshed an awake you feel. They tell us that they do this in the middle of the winter (when it gets about minus 25) then jump through the ice into the cold lake. According to them that makes you feel "out of your body" and we really can't argue with that.

We watched Into the Wild on their "cinema" and went to bed. Claudine was actually sleeping before that already.

2008-06-22 00:00:00
Written By: Claudine du Plessis

Cycling Day: 17
Distance: 132km

We were very sad to leave Reinis' paradise and get back on the road. Typical to Baltic states' summer weather it rained almost the whole day again. Billy will probably kill me when he sees that I wrote this, but he had a funny accident at lunch time when we crossed a ditch (we pushed or bikes through, but he had to cycle) and he landed into the (soft) plants head over heels and when he got up, the bike fell on top of him.

After lunch, we crossed the border to Estonia and again exchanged money. Estonian Kroon is just a little weaker than the Rand. Soon after crossing the border, we saw the Baltic sea for the first time and the road followed the coastline for a while. The Baltic sea is much quieter than our ocean, the water is of a more brownish gray color and doesn't taste so salty.

At 6, we reached Lemme, a campsite next to the beach. There are lots of those campsites in that area, you pay per car, so for us it was completely free. Our host from the next city, Marko, and his friend, Koidu, joined us. Estonians like fire, so we made a braai. We bought steaks at the campsite? shop, but they must have been injected with water, because they shrank a lot. The campsite was full of people celebrating mid summer. 

2008-06-20 00:00:00
Written By: Claudine du Plessis

Cycling Day: 16
Distance: 176km

A lack of sleep made it difficult to get up early, but we eventually got away from Siaulia at 10. Just outside of Siaulia, we stopped at the Hill of Crosses, as the name implies, it is a hill full of crosses of all shapes and sizes. According to the tourist information signs there, the hill has a lot of history. In the Soviet times, no one in Lithuania was allowed to place crosses next to the roads (now you can see it everywhere, it is a Baltic custom) and people began to place crosses on a certain hill. The Soviet government noticed that and burned everything down. This happened about twice, until in protest, thousands of Lithuanian people picked up the crosses and marched with them to this hill where they still are now. Now there must be about a million crosses, every day people place new crosses on the hill.

It started to rain, and we crossed the border to Latvia and exchanged some money. Latvia uses Lats, at about the same exchange rate as Brittish Pounds. The roads in Latvia was a little flatter than in Lithuania. Still the rain continued, and soaking wet, we stopped in a little Latvian town and had lunch. The rain only stopped as we entered Riga at eight that night, it was the first time we saw the sun for the day. Lance got a puncture, the most expensive puncture ever. He wanted to use a bomb to inflate the tire, but something went wrong and it didn't work. Next bomb, same story. So he used his new pump he bought in Berlin, but it only squirted out water. As he tried to get the water out, the top half broke off. He then broke the pump further by jumping on it. Kerry´s pump finally did the trick. I phoned our host in Riga, Reinis, who lives about 25km outside of Riga and we arranged that he will meet us in Garkalne, a town close to our house to help us find his home.

Getting out of Riga was trickier than we thought and we started to run a little bit late. Lucky for us, Reinis decided to look for us on the main road and when he found us we followed his car to his home.

Now I have to explain to you Reinis' place. He calls it his Little Paradise and we all agree. He lives with his parents and brothers in this house that used to be an old hospital in the forest. Surrounded by a forest, the house looks almost hidden, but it`s huge and beautiful. If I ever had to imagine my dream house, this would be it, only better than my imagination. His mom did the interior, wooden spiral staircases, everything is pine inside. We had a whole room for ourselves, kind of in the roof. Next to the house is a lake, where they catch trout. They also have a clubhouse, with a sauna and projector and screen for watching movies, a volleyball court, a tennis court. Everything in the middle of a pine forest, where you can't see another soul.

Reinis baked us traditional Latvian bread and we had it with tomato and Latvian cheese. Reinis`dad is the owner of Brolis beer, which is Latvian unpasteurised beer and we all agree – the best beer we have ever tasted. Reinis has this huge hubbly bubbly (he calls it his water pipe) and all funny flavours of tobacco like Raspberry Cheesecake. This pipe is his only weakness, if you can call it that, he is a vegetarian and doesn't drink or smoke and likes to live very healthy. He is one of five brothers and his one younger brother, Karlis (I hope I have the name right) also came with his friend and chatted with us. They were already starting celebrating for the Midsummer night party, which is a very big thing in the Baltic states.

2009-02-10 10:08:59
Written By: Billy van Graan

Name: Amstercow
Type: Bicycle Touring
Distance: 3300km
Countries: Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia
Date: 28 May 2008 – 2 July 2008
Team: Myself, Claudine du Plesses and Lance Smit

Amstercow is a 3300km bicycle tour from Amsterdam in the Netherlands across Europe to St. Petersburg in Russia. It was first planned to end in Moscow rather than St. Petersburg but since getting visas for Belarus is nearly impossible for South Africans we had to change our route.

New Route - Click to Enlarge

The trip was Claudine’s idea and at first I would have not gone with. But when Lance decided he would go with Claudine and I realized the trip would actually happen I was in.

The highlight of the trip was using couchsurfing.com for the first time and all the people we met through it really made the trip and memories special.