Unmapped Escapades

If anybody’s still looking at this, I posted the last couple sets of pictures to Flikr. 

This set shows Banska Bystrica and Banska Stiavnica in Slovakia and the ride between those two towns.

This set shows Monica, Annette, Genny, and me in Budapest. 

A pre-war apartment with 20-foot ceilings, 10-foot windows, 3 bedrooms, and a full kitchen.  Long, exploratory walks through the city.  Afternoon naps.  Evening beer gardens.  Renting a car to drive to the town of Eger and spend the afternoon wine-cellar hopping in the “Valley of the Beautiful Women,” trying to discover the best maker of Egri Bikaver.  Seriously thinking about, but as of yet, never actually going to, one of the many thermal baths.  Eating.  Hanging out with friends from the states.  What a way to end our trip.

Tomorrow’s “goals” are to find a way to pack the folding bikes for the flight back and to actually make it to the Gellert Baths. 

In Esztergom, we stayed at a place called the Ria Penzio where we had a nice room, but an ass of an innkeeper (is that even a term that’s used anymore?).   He told us at 9:30am that we had to check out by 10.  He overcharged is by at least 10 bucks, then turned into a huffy little kid when we tried to argue.  He had himself a pretty nice system of roping people in and overcharging them - he pretended that he didn’t speak English very well, told us that a room was 55 euros and that we could pay in Hungarian forints the next morning, rushed us from the room, gave us 1000 fewer forints in change than we expected, then when we questioned him, he marched us to the room, where the official posted price was 62 Euros.  It was a pretty crappy introduction to Hungary.  Budapest has made up for it.

From Esztergom, it was not possible to ride along the Danube to Budapest.  It seems that all of the package trips along the Danube trail to Budapest require a ferry for the last day.  So, we had to buy a road map, and we ended the biking part of our trip with yet another hilly day - 15 or 20 kilometers up before descending into Budapest.  We’ve only been on the bikes one time since. 

Computer time is up and so is my motivation to write.  Pictures from the last week or so of the trip will be on Flickr shortly after we get home.  We fly out at 6am on the 12th.

K and M

Shhh. Come a little closer. I’m gonna whisper it right in your ear.

“Slovakia.”

That’s it. Slovakia. Visit as soon as you possibly can. Right now, the Slovaks have it all to themselves, and the Vienna to Krakow to Budapest travelers are seriously missing out. Even our trusty (not!) Let’s Go Eastern Europe tells people who only have a few days to spend it in Bratislava. We didn’t come within 100kms of Bratislava and, still, Slovakia has been the unexpected gem of the trip.

My last post was about Poprad and its surroundings in the high Tatras. At that point, it was the highlight of our trip, but that was before we got to Banska Bystrica and Banska Stiavnica, a UNESCO world-heritage designated town that is not even mentioned in our guidebook.

Stiavnica is a mining town that was built on hillsides. It’s Bisbee, Eureka Springs, Pittsburg, and Krakow (with zero tourists) all rolled into one. If I had money to burn, I’d buy a 200-year-old building - there are quite a few in disrepair though the place is really trying - and make it into a B&B / mountain- and touring-bike travel agency. The hills, though I was literally and loudly cursing them yesterday and today, are the selling point. Vistas in all directions - forest on that hill, field of wildflowers on that one, a castle or cathedral on the hilltop over there. Around the next bend, you’ll ride through a herd of cattle crossing the road. Pictures? It’s not even worth it.

Speaking of pictures, we do have some of Bystrica and Stiavnica and yesterday’s ride between those two towns. However, we don’t have any of today’s ride, the one that I’m calling the best bike ride I’ve ever done. Why was it the best? 80 of the 90kms from Stiavnica to the Danube were downhill, which was a huge relief after yesterday’s unexpectedly hellish ride (3 wicked hills, including the last 3 or 4kms into Stiavnica). Smooth roads, high clouds that kept the day cool, villages that defined “cute” and “quaint”, and those hilltop vistas I described above. Even better? We had no idea that today was going to be such a great day. We picked a combination of white-colored roads on our map (those are the smallest paved roads with the least traffic) and discovered paradise.*

Why don’t we have any pictures of such an epic ride? Three reasons. One: Pictures would not do it justice. Two: It’s a pain in the butt to stop and take out the camera when you’re riding, especially when you have a long way to go. Three: The double-A batteries here suck. Either they don’t work at all, or they last about an hour.

So, we’re in Estergom, Hungary, resting our bodies for another 60-70kms tomorrow. That will bring us into Budapest on exactly the right day. Our friends Genny and Annette are flying into Budapest tomorrow, and we have an apartment reserved for the next week.

Just so that I don’t leave the impression that biking with many, many pounds of sh*t (how well-disguised is that curse word?) in a basically mountainous country is all fun and games, following is the poem that Monica composed with about 20kms to go through southern Slovakia to the Danube. As we went south, the villages became poorer, the landscape became much less scenic, and our snacks disappeared. In the end, we derived our energy from potato chips and chocolate-filled croissants.

Riding through Slovakia, I’m in a famished mood.

The villages are cute and all, but don’t have any food.

I really want a burger with a side of tater tots.

Or a chicken-fried schnitzel, wrapped in bacon, lots and lots.

There’s one little shop that might have food. It’s hard to tell.

But the doors are shut and locked. On a Tuesday? What the hell?

There’s a place across the street with tables and some chairs.

I ask if they have food, but all I get are mean stares.

I rummage through my bag again to see if food is there,

But all I find are breadcrumbs and some dirty underwear.

When we cross the Danube, I’m going to find some meat.

Because only one thing’s certain: southern Slovaks do not eat!

* In case anyone’s wondering how we navigated our riding on this trip, it was pretty easy. We bought a road map of the entire country and we did our best to stay on the white-colored roads. Sometimes, we were forced to ride on the yellow or even the orange roads (as marked on our map), but those were usually short segments, and drivers gave us lots of room.

** Check out the last couple of posts. Pictures and hyperlinks should be updated. Pictures from this post will be up as soon as I get some good batteries.

My handlebars creak. My warped wheel groans against the brakes on each rotation. My un-greased chain squeals.

Okay, so my bicycle doesn´t exactly weep, but it comes close to it, and so do I. My thighs burn. My shoulder bag is soaked in sweat. My body and mind are exhausted.

We´ve spent the last 2 days cycling through the countryside around our base of Poprad, Slovakia, in the shadow of the high Tatras mountains. We came over the border - and the other side of those same mountains - by way of bus from Zakopane, Poland.

I feel like my last 2 or 3 posts have been driven by criticism of our experiences in Poland, by cynicism about the crowds of tourists, by sarcasm related to the let´s-find-our-purpose-in-life-while-traveling-and-drinking-with-other-backpackers backpackers. This is probably going to be a short post, because we have come across absolutely nothing worthy of criticism in Slovakia. This country is everything we´ve been looking for…so far.

It´s cheap. It´s inexplicably untouristy. It´s friendly. It´s gorgeous. It´s a dream for people traveling by bike. Small, traffic-less roads that meander through the countryside, leading us to picturesque villages. Vista after vista that allow us to soak in the landscape in all directions and take some phenomenal pictures for all you couch-bound travelers out there.

I guess I could complain about the hills, but that´s not the Slovaks´ fault. And I guess I could complain about the hideous apartment complexes on the outskirts of Poprad, but that´s more Soviet idiocy for you. What I can complain about is the lack of good computing power, a fast internet connection, keyboards with the z and the y switched and with no apostrophe and no way for me to make hyperlinks. As a result, no hyperlinks to this post, weird y and z mistakes, and you´re going to have to wait on the pictures…again.

We´re staying in a wonderful room above a pub called Cafe Razy - the “C” is really big on the sign, and the “afe” is small, so it looks like “Crazy.” It´s in the little, colorful, vibrant pedestrain-only center of Poprad.

We rode 70 or so kms yesterday. Our route took us to the very base of the mountains, zooming down to the flatter plains, through a thunder and lightning and hailstorm, over wet railroad tracks where Monica´s wheel got caught and sent her for a tumble, to a village restaurant where I ordered peroshkis because they seemed safe - hopefully no sheep´s cheese - and got sweet dumplings swimming in melted butter, sugar and cinnamon, to the Kezmarok Castle, through self-contained village after village, by Roma - gypsy - camps in horendous condition, up a massive hill, and back to our pub, restaurant, beds. On the way to the base of the mountains, we passed through the towns of Stary Smokovec and Horny Smokovec, which, coincidentally, are the names that Monica and I would assume if we ever became a singing duo like Ike and Tina Turner. “And now…Stary and Horny Smohhh-Kohhh-Viiich!!” I´d be Stary.

Today, I took another ride while Monica rested her aching knee and exhausted legs and worked on her writing project. I rode 90 kms - all of it, it seemed, uphill - into the “difficult to access” Slovensky Raj National Park and back. My destination was the Dobsinska Ice Cave. I made it, but was so exhaused, all I could think about was the possibility that there would be food in the vicinity. There was, and I ate the 2 best hot dogs I ever tasted. They were the only things I could decipher on the menu. The cave was worth the ride, but it wasn´t unfathomable like caves we visited in the Ozarks. Many, many feet of solid ice, stalagtites and stalagmites formed by ice, blessed coolness, and a guide who stopped the group every 2 minutes or so to spout facts in Slovak monotone. I got nothing from it. I think I heard the word “engineer” and the word “four” if the word “four” in Slovak is similar to the word “four” in Russian. No pictures ’cause it cost an extra 15 bucks to take them. Still, it was cool.

Here´s the plan. In the morning, we´ll evaluate if we can actually do another 70 or so kms on the bikes tomorrow - this time fully loaded. If so, we´ll ride to the town of Liptovsky Mikulas. If not, we´ll bus to Banska Bystrica and start the ride toward Budapest from there. I hear it´s downhill.

- K and M

When we crossed the border from Lithuania into Poland, our Lonely Planet guidebook suddenly became obsolete, and our knowledge base, our bible, is now Let’s Go Eastern Europe. It’s a book that’s designed to blow you through Eastern Europe at a pace of about one country every 2 days. It points out the partyingest hostels, the hippest clubs, the “backpacker-friendly” bars. Its reviews, suggestions, and recommendations for day trips are cheery soundbites that could have been written by the Bush administration. I don´t even know why we have this book.

It shouldn’t have - and didn’t - come as any surprise, then, that the book left out a wee bit of information about the hike it calls the “Valley of the of the Five Polish Tarns.” It says, “…this hike is perfect if you have time for only one trail.” The directions are even mostly accurate, though we brought a map just in case. The information that was left out by the writer or chopped by editors is that this is not a ‘hike’ as we define it in the US. At home, if I come across 4 other trekkers in 2 days, I feel like my remote wilderness experience has been spoiled. The silence has been shattered.

The Let’s Go mentioned a funicular to the top of a mountain in Zakopane. It did not mention that its recommended hiking trail up is the same trail for people who took the funicular to hike down. And every Pole in Poland took the funicular up yesterday. So, for us, the hike was like a trip to the mall with mom on the day after Thanksgiving, with the requisite screaming kids, preening middle-schoolers, cell-phone chatters, and elbows-splayed power walkers. There were even groups of nuns having fun and a girl with a cell-phone boom box hanging around her neck. “…Are you somewhere feeling lonely, or is someone loving you? Tell me how to win your heart, for I haven’t got a clueueue…” Ahhh. A little hit of Lionel in the wilderness.

The absurdity of the crowds was not nearly as annoying as it was in Krakow for a whole shmorgasbord of reasons. First, travelers who come to the Tatras to hike are completely different from backpackers who city hop to drink. Secondly, we found the most unbelievably good restaurant on our first night here, and we knew that reasonably-priced pork shashlik, kielbasa, fried potatoes, sauerkraut, salad, and beer were waiting for us. Finally, the scenery was spectacular, almost spectacular enough to allow us to forgive the person who thought it would be a good idea to shuttle people who can’t get their asses in shape past the 2 hours of straight uphill hiking that is usually required to access such beautiful ruggedness. That funicular should be reserved for the elderly, infirm, and the nuns.

I rode my bike all over town this morning because our handy-dandy guidebook has no information about getting from Zakopane over the border to Slovakia, even though it’s only about 10kms away. I looked at some discussion forums that make the crossing seem complicated - mini-bus to the border, get Slovak money, walk across, catch the bus to the nearest town. That’s BS. There are 2 buses a day to Poprad, Slovakia, stopping in Stary Smokovic and Tatranska Levoca along the way. It costs 10 bucks.

It’s 10:55. The bus leaves at 1:05. Still haven’t decided if we’re going to leave today or stay for another grilled pork fest this evening. We’ll see.

Oh, and here’s a picture of a duck.

More pictures here. Others coming soon, I hope.

- K and M

We had to drop 500 fat ones on a new digital camera after the old one - we’ve had it since before we left for Kenya (Summer 2002) - crapped out.  RIP. 

Check out pictures from our campsite and hike in Zakopane here and let me know if you think it was money well spent.  I think it was.

Working on a Zakopane post now, and hope to have it up tomorrow.

A folk singer friend of ours tells a story about playing a series of gigs in Arizona, driving from one town to the next.  The towns were small, conservative, and boring, and as the band worked their way toward Phoenix, the big city became Eden in their minds.  On their final approach, a chant was started by one member and enthusiastically picked up by the others - “Can’t wait to get to Phoenix!  Can’t wait to get to Phoenix!”  The freeways got bigger, the traffic worse, the scenery non-existent.  As soon as they hit the city limits, their chant changed to “Can’t wait to get out of Phoenix!  Can’t wait to get out of Phoenix!”*

 Unfortunately and unexpectedly, Monica and I experienced the same emotional swing as we exited the train station in Krakow.  It wasn’t shadelessness, waterlessness, or waves of heat visible over the pavement that turned us off, but hoards, throngs, plagues of tourists.  We had been off the high-school-tour-bus track, and now we were decidedly on it.  All roads lead to Krakow.

The old town square is a place for white Brits to sunburn, red-faced Brits to guzzle pints, and drunk Brits to shout.  A place for backpacking dudes from South Africa to hit on backpacking chicks from France.  A place for well-heeled, white-clad Americans to ride in horse-drawn carriages.  A place where bar mascots dressed as frothy beer mugs dance while plumed horses with peripheral-vision blockers try to avoid trampling oblivious map readers.  A place where a guy in early-nineteenth-century duds snakes through the crowd on a bicycle with an enormous front wheel and a tiny back one, ringing a bell all the while.  It’s a madhouse, a zoo, a circus, a huge international party.  It’s as overwhelming as - dare I say it? - New Delhi without the diseased beggars.  (OK, that’s a little overboard, but I was on a roll.)  There’s even a city tour exclusively for junkies.

We quickly returned to our room to recover, nap, and decide if and when we’d go back out.  We had cut short our time in Vilnius, blown through Warsaw - arrived at 9pm and left at 8:05 the next morning.  Sorry Warsaw.  And now this.  We couldn’t even walk in Old Town.

Later it got better.  We rode the bikes through the crowds in Old Town to Wawel castle.  It was satisfying to zip around and between the weary walkers.  We found some fantastic Polish meatballs and pork-vegetable-cheese stew in a quiet restaurant.  We stopped in the main square on our way back at the edge of the throng listening to lively Romanian music at a massive stage.  Monica danced next to an enthusiastic woman in a yellow dress.  It appeared to be the 10th Crossroads music festival in Krakow, and it was fun.

Today, we went to Auschwitz.  Since I first learned about the Holocaust, I’ve thought about (dreaded?) what it must be like to stand on the grounds of this place of nightmares.  It was somber and interesting, but it wasn’t upsetting, an it’s hard to articulate why.  Maybe because pictures of emaciated, tortured and dead bodies quickly numbs the mind.  Maybe because there were no in-depth personal stories.  It’s more upsetting to read the Diary of Anne Frank or to watch Life is Beautiful, where the characters become such real people before they suffer.  Maybe it was the cattle-drive nature of being herded through cell blocks, ”hearing” rooms, gallows and torture cellars while bored-looking high schoolers with shoulders slumped and hands in their pockets yawned and over-zealous, anxious tour guides pushed us ahead to make way for their groups. 

Anyway, I’m glad we went.  I think you have to go if you’re in Krakow.  Many of the fences, buildings, crematoriums, and torture devices remain.  Other things - some gallows and the “Death Wall” for example - were reconstructed by the museum.  Be sure to get there for the short film with footage from when the Red Army liberated the camp.  Didn’t take any pictures.  Though many others were, it seemed uncomfortable and inappropriate.

I have to mention the place where we ate a late lunch after returning from Auschwitz.  It’s called Perozki U. Vincent, and it has the most wonderful pierogies I’ve ever had.  Those stuffed with spinach and drizzled with cheese sauce and the traditional Russian pielmienie are heavenly.  To find it, wander the streets near Golden Hostel away form the bus station.  Look for the green shutters painted with big, colorful flowers.

Tonight - more food, beer, take pictures.

Tomorrow - to the Polish Carpathian town of Zakopane.  Hiking?  Biking? Fewer crowds?  Let’s hope so.

Krakow pictures here.

- K and M

* Sorry to all the Phoenicians out there, including Mom, Dad, and Sis, but I’m just staying true to the story. 

Yay!  We’re on the train, not the bus, which heightens the comfort level of the next 8 hours dramatically.  On the negative side, it also heightens the stress level as the bikes take up a lot of space between the seats.  There’s no tuckng them away underneath.  Just hoping wagon #2 stays relatively uncrowded.

This gives me time to note my miscellaneous musings about the trip that I previously left out due to the hour or my blood-alcohol level, both of which seem to be unusually high when I’m writing.

- Nobody, not one person, has even attempted to identify what this picture is showing.  So I’ll tell you.  It’s the ventilation shaft to the dungeon of the castle in Cesis, though that’s far less exciting than some of the answers I was hoping to get.

- The Baltic countries are way the heck up there.  I don’t think either of us realized how far north we were until we looked at a map in the bus station in Riga.  You get to London by going south through Vilnius.  I don’t recommend that bus trip, though.

- Vilnius is great.  It’s one of the few travelers gems that you have to visit now, before it turns into a real madhouse like Prague or Phuket or Machu Picchu or the supposed Mt. Sinai and a bunch of bums write boring blogs (I don’t want any comments on that one) about the zen-like experiences they had while watching the sun rise over colonies of tripods and zoom lenses.

- My mom wondered, by email, about the little wheels on our folding bikes.  Turns out that the number of wheel rotations doesn’t matter as long as the crank size and chain length are normal.  The folders are a little slower than normal bikes, but it’s not due to wheel size.  It’s because they’re basically beach cruisers, and they have only seven gears.

(Oh, and yes, it was a real mushroom.  Apparently, it had been abandoned by the real Smurfs in the area, though.

- I had time on this ride to finish my Lake Waptus post.  If you really have some time on your hands, give it a read.

Time to settle in for the long haul…

LATER:

Notes to self:

1. When you get on a long, hot train ride, check if you’re crossing any time zones.  You have another hour before getting the opportunity to take off your sweaty shoes and buy some water. Schmuck.

2. Before you get on a long, hot train ride with no refreshments, buy something less salty than potato chips and salami for lunch.  Or, remember to buy an extra gallon of water as well.

Last thought: Polish phonetics, like French, is something that I will never attempt to understand because it irritates me too much from the outset.  “Faux” when you mean “fo.”  “Beau” when you mean “bo.”  “Dzickuje” when you mean “jen-koo-yeh.”  “Czesc” when you mean “chieshch.”  I don’t deny that, in English, “knight” spells “nite,” but…come on.

- K and M

Vilnius seems to be a city that is at ease with itself. It’s grittier, grungier, graffitied…er than the other major Baltic cities. Dress is down and personality is up. There’s a lot more laughter from alterna-chicks than clenched cheekbones of high-fashion vixens.

An example of the fun-loving Lithuanian personality (and the reason we’d love to spend more time here): Tonight, at one of the three beer gardens we visited, 2 young dudes sat down at the table next to ours, plopped down a three-foot stuffed duck with a limp beak and shifty eyes in a free chair, and bought it a beer. This was right up Monica’s alley, and a lively conversation ensued about the duck’s purpose, name, and at whom it was looking each moment. Eventually, we learned that it had no purpose and no name, but judging by the giggling, beer-guzzling, glamorous gals at another nearby table, the duck was a pretty smooth move.  Are you taking notes, single guys?

We’re staying at a hostel in the self-declared “republic” of Uzupio - an artsy neighborhood that has pulled off a lets-make-fun-of-ourselves-while-getting-a-real-point-across stunt that Seattle’s Fremont and Ballard wish they could emulate. Uzupio’s “constitution” declares that dogs can act like dogs and that everyone has the right to misunderstand (along with 30 or so other truths).

I do have to add that there seem to be far more tour hoards here than in Riga. Maybe I’m imagining things. Maybe Riga’s population density is high enough to make you feel like the only tourist there. But, in Vilnius, there seems to be group after group of church fetishists following a know-it-all with an unextended but raised umbrella - the mark of the tour-group leader. Vilnius is definitely a dream come true for people who get turned on by churches.

Despite this one fault, Vilnius is a wholly entertaining place to spend a few days or a month or 2.

One-fourth of the population of Lithuania lives in and around Vilnius, according to our rarely-reliable Lonely Planet guide. The book is believable in this case because the Soviet-style apartment blocks, and crane after crane adding similarly-ugly infill, began at least 20 minutes outside the city, as the bus rolls. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to explore these unique suburbs because our bikes were under the bus, not under our butts.

It’s a shame that we had to bus our way through much of Latvia and all of Lithuania. I would have liked to bike the coast and taken in a basketball game. If we’re lucky enough to come back, though, we’ll base ourselves in Tartu or in Vilnius.

Reluctantly, we’re leaving Vilnius tomorrow. We’ve seen nothing else of Lithuania and its cheerful population, but we do have to be in Budapest by August 6th or 7th. In the back of our minds, we both knew long day of travel was coming, and tomorrow it begins. It’s 8 hours by bus to Warsaw, one night there, then on to Krakow ASAP. We’d like to spend a little time in the Carpathians of Poland and Tatras of Slovakia before riding along the Danube from Bratislava to Budapest. We’ll see.

Pictures of Vilnius here.

- K and M

Monica’s parents visited Riga 6 years ago. Denis said that what he remembered of the city was that it was full of women wearing miniskirts, tight tops, and high heels. I say that he’s right. I also say that’s not the only thing that makes Riga a wonderful place.

Riga is alive. It’s teeming with people - a healthy mix of locals and tourists. It’s buzzing with activity. People-watching is first-rate. Fashions are unbelievable (I heard that, in Moscow, women are picked out as tourists - and theft victims - by their comparatively frumpy clothing. The same is true in Riga. If you want to fit in, ditch the shorts that zip into pants and the comfortable walking shoes. Pack a short skirt, a tight blouse that shows some cleavage, large-lensed sunglasses, and 2-inch high heels - just practice walking on cobblestones first. The only cities I’ve been to in the US that seem as alive as Riga are New York and Chicago. Imagine those cities, but way older, with a car-free, beer-garden-filled downtown core.

We got here via a bike ride from Cesis to Segulda, then a bus into the city. The ride was only 40kms. It took us 5 hours. Don’t ask. What the nice woman in the tourist information office in Cesis should have done, instead of merely handing us the somewhat-helpful bike map, was to ask if we had full-suspension mountain bikes. She also should have told us that 35 of those 40kms would be on dirt, much of it crappy, washboarded, hilly dirt. The folding bikes can take quite a beating, but we had to take it easy most of the way, and there’s nothing more frustrating than finally reaching a downhill and being forced to squeeze the brakes all the way. The scenery was great when we weren’t concentrating on the road, and we did get to take the only remaining “ferry” across the Guaja River (9 ferries operated on the river in the 13th century. Who knew?) The 17-year-old operator of the “ferry” pulled it across the river using a cable suspended about 3 feet above the water while an older man collected our payment and issued tickets. I’m still baffled about the necessity of the tickets.  Trying to sneak onto that ferry would have been like trying to shoplift a dishwasher.

The folding bikes proved their versatility and worth again, fitting under the bus for the ride to Riga

We’ve spent the last 2 days strolling old town, new town and the market, sitting in beer gardens, eating at this awesome Latvian chain called Lido - a buffet with breaded pork chops, kebabs, chicken cutlets, carrot and beet salads, unbelievable fried potatoes and, of course, pull-your-own-tap beers - and we even took in the Museum of Occupation in Latvia. Wanna be oppressed? Get occupied by the Soviets, then the Nazies, than the Soviets again. With all the blatant killing and environmental and cultural destruction, this country and its present, prosperous state is a true wonder of the world.

Today, we rode the 20 or so kms to the Gulf of Riga resort area of Jurmala. The Lonely Planet directions got us lost for a while, but we just kept asking people, “Jurmala? Jurmala? Jurmala?” We learned the way through a series of vague hand and arm guestures and “Er…toorn…right,” with rolled ‘r’s.

The beach is long, white, and packed with the same beautiful people that exist in Riga. We even stumbled across the artists’ entrance for an apparently-very-big music festival. Throngs of bikini-clad teenie boppers holding pictures to be autographed and surrounding each darkly-tinted car as it was admitted by security.

But who cares? Kathy asked the real question by email. Which country has the best beer? I’d have to say Latvia - Cesu, Aldaris Zelta, Lido’s home brew - as a country. The best single beer I’ve had so far has been in the gunpowder warehouse beer garden in Tartu, Estonia. But this mission isn’t over yet - on to Lithuania!

We leave by bus for Vilnius tomorrow.

- K and M