Thursday, April 19, 2012

The Baltic States

After travelling by bike and ferry for 8 days, we finally end off our journey through the Estonian Islands in a Parnu, a beautiful little beach town in Estonia.  It's a bit of a local seaside tourist destination for Estonians and Finlanders and a perfect place to rest up our weary legs. 

From Parnu, we take a local bus and travel to Riga, the capital of the neighbouring country, Latvia.  Riga is a charming place, with its mix of new and old.  Vic and I take a walking tour of the city on our arrival day and then spend the afternoon relaxing on one of the many patios in the old town.  Enjoying the local fare, we get addicted to a popular local fast food option, pimeni, which is a meat or vegetable filled dumpling topped with sauce and sour cream.  

Riga is right by the water and close to many beaches, so for the next couple of days, we take the local train out to visit some of the more popular hot spots to soak up some sun and sand.



A cell block inside the Genocide Museum
From Riga, we take another local bus to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuanthia.  Vilnius is like an larger version of Riga and to me, reminds me of a smaller version of Berlin.   It is pretty and has a little bit of everything all within a very small radius.  There are cobbled stoned streets on one end of the city and a large commercial shopping district on the other.  We go visit the Genocide Museum which gives a grim and fascinating account of the country's turbulent history through communist times.  We spend most of our time exploring the city, save for taking a lovely day trip out to visiting one of its local castles.