Baltic States

Today we headed north; destination Klaipeda, Lithuania.
We feel a bit like we’re whizzing through countries at the moment, it’s true, we are. We always knew this would happen due to Schengen Zone rules. We had 28 days to get from Serbia to Oslo, Norway for a cruise up the Norwegian coastline. We picked our transit route to take in as many major cities as we could, without doubling up or back-tracking.

Plus, there was something Klaipeda that Sarah really wanted to do, and we wanted to finally get to Helsinki after our previously planned visit in 2020 was cancelled by Covid.

Today we went fossicking for amber. We’d seen something about Baltic Amber on tv a few years ago and it’s been on our list since.
We were picked up by Paul, and took a car ferry across the Curonian Lagoon to the Curonian Spit. This is a sand dune, almost 100km long, now almost all covered in seagrass and forests; it shares a border with Russia at the southern end of the spit, we stayed well clear of that.

Our first stop was at Amber Bay. Amber is no longer found at this bay but at one time there were a thousand people working here, mining it.

We drove through a pine forest that is slowly being destroyed by cormorants, the droppings of cormorants are acidic and this kills the trees. They and the resident grey herons have already gone south for the winter.
With our guide we wandered up and down Preila beach. Being October it was very empty, but in summer it is a popular tourist destination.

Amber is found on this beach, usually during or after stormy weather, when pieces of amber are found amongst seaweed, or even floating in the water! Paul got his waders on and with his net, the traditional way of catching amber, brought stones to the edge of the water for us to search.

The good weather worked against us as it was calm, there was no seaweed today and we found no amber pieces. Despite this, it was really pleasant walking on the beach, listening to the gentle waves and seeing so many beautifully coloured rocks/pebbles.

Paul’s mum often walks the beaches after midnight, as do many others, and using a fluorescent torch, they find the washed up amber because it glows under that light.

Our next stop was Mizgiris Amber museum. This was an excellent museum, small but probably one of the best we’ve been to. Using technology to take us back 60million years to when dinosaurs walked the earth we saw how the amber trees that no longer exist, leaked sap, often catching insects that have been therefore preserved for millennia.

We were most surprised to learn that amber is not just amber coloured, it can be white, yellow, green, blue and red as well as crystallised, cloudy or clear depending on the specific conditions it encountered when formed.

Next up was smoked fish for lunch. We had a choice of mackerel, sea-bream or sea-bass that had been smoked this morning. Even Kevin enjoyed it. (The hot chips were amazing too!)

We then headed to a local amber workshop where we picked out our own piece of amber. The craftsman polished them up, drilled a hole and gave us an amulet. Paul showed his the boxes of amber his mum has found over the years and even gave us some. Hope he doesn’t get into trouble!

We walked back to the museum shop to buy some earrings. They had a fabulous little statue of an amber fisherman on the shelf, but unfortunately it was not for sale!
Our last stop was at a cafe for a hot drink. Our guide gave us four local cakes to try as well as some amber infused moonshine to drink.

The cakes were delicious and 10mins later I can still feel the moonshine at the back of my throat. Then it was back to the ferry and our accommodation.
We had a really good day, it was nice to be out of a city again!

Today we headed to Riga, capital of Latvia, the middle of the three Baltic countries we’ll be visiting on our transit drive.

Most of the day was spent driving through pine forests and flat farmland.
Not far from Riga we stopped at a restaurant for lunch, we both chose venison. The restaurant had a large collection of dead animals on display, deer, antelope, bison, wild boar, beaver, otter and lots of birds. They’re clearly not vegans!

We made it to our accommodation in the old town.

As the sun set we headed out for a stroll and a snack. Some of the notable sights in Riga are right outside our door including the Memorial to the Victims of the Soviet Occupation “History Tactile”, House of the Black Heads and the site of the first New Year tree in Riga.

Today was our day in Riga, we headed out with no plan, just to see where our legs took us. First stop was the Central Market.

The first hall was full of vendors selling meat, fish and a huge variety of dried fish – salmon, mackerel, eel, sprats and many more. We bought a tiny can of caviar and some smoked eel to try later.
The meats were what you’d expect, with some extra treats including cows trachea and tail, pigs head, ears, trotter and tongue. All the meat looked really good and was considerably cheaper than Australia.

We shared a portion of Palmeņi, Latvian dumplings with a pork and beef filling, served with sour cream.
We then zig-zagged along the cobbled streets, not stopping at the Aussie bar.

We went by some remains of the old medieval wall, through some lovely gardens and colourful old buildings as well as a couple of churches/cathedrals. Riga is very pretty.

For dinner we had some cheese & biscuits along with our smoked eel (yum x2) and caviar (yum x1) from the market.

We drove from Riga to Tallinn yesterday. It was a relaxing drive as it was mostly through forest with more gorgeous autumn colours, though many more leaves are on the ground now.

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This morning, after morning phone calls to the kids, we walked into Tallinn. As per many cities in Eastern Europe, Tallinn has some very pretty buildings and cobbled lanes.

We had no plan, just wander.
We climbed a tower and walked along part of the old medieval wall. The views from the tower were lovely. The tower dates back to the 14th century. In it’s lifetime it’s also been a prison and a weapons store.

We then came across the Banned Book Museum. Amongst the banned books, the strangest was a kids book about penguins that was banned in Singapore as the penguins were gay. Other notable books were 1984, Animal Farm, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Diary of Anne Frank diary, Salman Rushdie’s Satanic verses, To Kill a Mocking Bird, several volumes of Tintin, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Winnie the Pooh, Pippi Longstocking, Where the Wild Things Are and Red Riding Hood!

Then we popped into St Peter & St Paul’s Cathedral. We’ve noticed that in the Baltics many religious buildings are not as ornate as other places around the world.