Never mind the Baltics... - 15/08/2007

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are three countries that appeared (or re-appeared if you were old enough to remember) in the European theatre after the collapse of the USSR. I expected them to be a little bit more 'eastern bloc' than countries such as Czech Republic and Poland, because whereas the latter were under the Soviet sphere of influence these three were actually part of the old USSR. As always preconceptions turned out to be wide of the mark and we discovered that these countries had very much separate and individual identities than simply that of the Soviet Baltic states. In fact that is a misnomer in itself and more than once I read or was told that the correct term is 'Baltic nations'.

We started to hitch from the Estonian border town of Narva and after a slow start our luck picked up and we were in Tallinn before evening. We were so impressed with the Estonian countryside, it is so clean and well-kept. There is no rubbish anywhere and there are acres and acres of forest land, lakes and farm land, all pristine with barely a communistic edifice in sight. The sky was so blue and the air so clean, a lot of wind farms dot the landscape and there was a marked absence of industrial sites. Anyone could be forgiven for thinking they had taken a wrong turn in St Petersburg and ended up in Finland and that is the point. There is such a close relationship between Estonia and Finland, in fact the closest language to Estonian is Finnish, although as we discovered during our journey about 50% of Estonians are actually Russian (the figure for Latvia is similar, for Lithuania it is around 25%).

After taking a bus from the centre of Tallinn we found a nice place to camp just outside the city and the next day returned to explore the city. It is a beautiful city with a small old town of winding cobbled streets. Perched on a hill next to the old town is Toompea, a small district of churches and castles from where there are incredible views of the old town and the Baltic sea behind. Good views were also had from the tower of Olleviste church although I think the 'viewing platform' was a bit dodgy. It is an old church tower and on the top they have put some wooden boards above the lead roof and a metal cage around it. I am not really scared of heights but this was a brown trousers moment!

Tallinn, Estonia

From Tallinn we headed south to Parnu. It is apparently Estonias premier beach resort but we would never have known. Maybe it is because we turned left instead of right out of the train station but we had to circumnavigate a large swamp and battle through the undergrowth to reach the sea (note: sea, not beach). There was a small sandbank that was reachable through 100m of shallow water and from there another 200m before it became deep enough to swim. It was nice and warm though, especially coming from Baikal, with a temperature around 20 degrees. The town of Parnu is full of luxurious homes with large gardens and expensive cars in the driveway, it looked out of an Ideal Homes catalogue. During the evening people came to bathe in the sea, no-one minded our tent and the only problem we had was fending off the aggressive mosquitoes.

Sunset at Parnu, Estonia

To me Estonia seemed like the perfect place to live with a high quality of life. It was a little more expensive than we anticipated (we thought costs would be on a par with Czech Republic but they were slightly higher) but still cheaper than Russia.

We had a hair-raising ride to Riga after being picked up by a driver who clearly thought he was Lewis Hamilton. On the way we saw many of Latvias beautiful beaches, but unfortunately none of the (in)famous nudist beaches, I guess they don't put them next to the main road. We did not find Riga to be so nice as Tallinn, there is still a well-preserved old town but it is marred by a few too many Soviet-era buildings and much to many modern touristic bars and restaurants. The Latvian language is totally different from Estonian, the only other language it seems even remotely similar to is Lithuanian. It is interesting how Polish, Slovakian and Czech are much closer to Russian than any of these three countries but I guess there is no reason for the Slavic languages to be clustered all together. Wandering through Riga we bumped into Caspar, a Latvian guy we had met in a guest house in Togo. He had ridden his motorbike down the western side of Africa to Cape Town and had just returned two weeks ago. Reminding me of bumping into Brendan and Becky not once but twice it reminded me of how small the world is and that the circles in which we move are even smaller.

Riga old town, Latvia

Our hitching luck continued as we were picked up by an off-duty luxurious taxi that took us towards Lithuania. We got a lift the next morning to the border and from there an Austrian-Spanish couple picked us up and took us through to Vilnius. They were both backpackers before but have moved into the hire-car arena due to pregnancy and they gave us a few tips on where to go in Kenya and Mozambique.

Vilnius is another city with a nice old town, possibly slightly more quaint and pretty than Riga despite being a bit more spread out. We did get the impression however that Lithuania is not as rich as Latvia or Estonia. One of the most interesting parts of Vilnius is the Uzupis Republic, a small quarter of the town populated by artists and bohemians and, now, dread-locked, unwashed neo-hippies squatting in squalor. Uzupis declared itself an independent country in 1997 in a protest against rising property costs and every April 1^st they close the “borders” and stamp passports on entry and exit. The constitution is displayed on a mural just inside Uzupis. One of the first actions of the Uzupis Republic was to build a memorial to Frank Zappa in Vilnius, although it is not in Uzupis itself but hidden away in a sidestreet somewhere. It is the only Frank Zappa memorial in Lithuania (possibly in Europe?) and I was slightly disappointed not to find it.

Uzupis Republis, Vilnius, Lithuania

Leaving Vilnius we camped at Trakai, the old capital of Lithuania. It is a small town surrounded by lakes with castles on islands, in other words, a prime tourism sight. It felt somehow American with its pristine gardens and well organised rowing teams on the lakes, practising for the Olympics. We spent a day sunbathing by the lake, watching the rowers, having a picnic and cooling off with the occasional swim. The mosquitoes here were really disrespectful as they didn't mind where they bit, I had bites all over my face. They were even worse than in Parnu. Somehow I did not expect there to be so many mosquitoes here. Cambodia - yes, Ghana - certainly, but Estonia and Lithuania?

Trakai,Lithuania

We left Trakai at 3:30pm and by 8pm the next evening we had hitched through to the Czech border town of Nachod. The trip included a couple of hours wandering around Wroclaw, admiring the main square and indulging on zapiekanky (the Polish speciality, something like French bread pizza). We were really surprised to get there so quickly, it was mainly due to a truck driver picking us up on the Polish border and taking us all the way to Warsaw.

Wroclaw, Poland

As it had when we returned from Africa, our luck ran out at the Czech border. It was too late to get another lift and, of course, the last train and bus onwards had also left. Once again we had to settle for a pub meal and a few cheap Czech beers, a pint of the local brew 'Primator' cost only 14Kc (about 35p). The next day was Sunday so we decided to catch a bus the rest of the way, we left Nachod on the 5:30am to Hradec Kralove and onwards to Prague in time for breakfast.