Staying on track

Our journey north continues, kilometers are adding up on the odometer, we’re now at 26,700 km since we left on July 31st last year.

The days are getting longer and longer. The first light of day appears around 4 a.m., and true darkness doesn’t arrive until about 11 p.m.  We really can't forget to close the blinds! As for the temperatures, they’re still a bit chilly for our liking. It’s true that we’ve now crossed the 57th parallel, but we still wouldn’t mind a few extra degrees.

Still, we entered the Baltic countries under beautiful sunny skies, starting with Lithuania, the first of the three on our route. As soon as we crossed the border, we headed straight for the Baltic coast without stopping in Vilnius, the capital, because we wanted to make the most of the good weather with outdoor activities rather than city visits. We did have to make a “small” detour though, because the most direct road would have taken us through Kaliningrad, a Russian territory. Not exactly recommended these days… So despite what the map says, we carefully and wisely went around the whole region. Our goal was to spend a few days on the dunes of Neringa (also known as the Curonian Spit), a narrow strip of sandy land about 100 km long (50 km in Lithuania and 50 km in Russia) and less than 3 km wide along the Baltic Sea. You have to take a short ferry crossing from the city of Klaipėda to get there. Since the ferry isn’t cheap for vehicles, and because it’s a protected natural reserve where overnight stays are only allowed at campsites (which weren’t cheap either), we decided to explore by bike instead. Now, neither of us are big beach enthusiasts or experts, but we can honestly say we’ve never seen sand this fine before. Lithuania isn’t exactly the first country that comes to mind for a beach vacation, but honestly, the beaches are really, really nice!

And the sunsets weren't bad either 🌞

We didn’t test the water temperature, though — and that’s probably where we’d lose anyone who had started considering Lithuania for their next holiday 😅. But it’s not all sand; there are also beautiful pine forests and a few charming villages. We especially enjoyed the little walk along the Hill of Witches in the village of Juodkrantė, where there’s a trail of wooden sculptures inspired by local legends and folklore.

Lithuania’s coastline isn’t very long — barely 100 km if you include the 50 km of dunes. So we quickly crossed into Latvia, the second of the three Baltic countries, the one in the middle.

Once again, we were surprised by how much can change simply by crossing a border. We expected the three countries to be more or less similar, and while the landscapes do resemble each other — very flat, with farms and forests everywhere — we could really feel we had entered a different country, both architecturally and atmospherically. In Latvia, there are wooden houses everywhere, both in the countryside and in the cities.

Our first stop in Latvia was the city of Liepāja, which has a rather unique history. Over the centuries, this small port city has been Polish, Swedish, Russian, and German at different times. It experienced rapid growth in the 19th century when Tsar Alexander III (Latvia was part of the Russian Empire at the time) decided to fortify the city and turn its port into one of the bases of the Russian navy. The location wasn’t chosen without reason because, unlike Riga or St. Petersburg, Liepāja’s port does not freeze in winter. Since then, the city has had a strong military identity, with entire districts built to serve the army, many of which were completely off-limits to civilians. This situation lasted until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. We learned all this while visiting a former military prison — a very interesting tour.

Despite the sunshine, the air was still very cold. We asked our guide if that was normal, and he told us yes: at the beginning of May, the Baltic Sea near Denmark and Sweden is still partly frozen, which brings cold air onto the coast. “If you move inland,” he said, “even just 20 km, you’ll gain 10 degrees!” We didn’t need to be told twice 😄. As soon as the tour ended, we jumped back into the van and headed inland toward Kuldīga to see the waterfalls, supposedly the widest in Europe. While driving there and looking at the gently rolling landscape, we were starting to feel skeptical, but once we arrived we had to admit that yes, they are quite large. They may not be very high (barely 2 meters high), but they are pretty wide — 275 meters across.

Alright, we agree, they’re no Niagara Falls, but they’re still very pretty, and the little town itself was lovely.

We then continued toward Riga, the capital of Latvia, arriving under rain and cold weather. Temperatures below 10°C in May were a bit hard on us… The city center was fairly quiet, hardly anyone in the streets of the old town, which is always a plus for photos 😉.

On the other hand, the city library was very lively! And the building itself has a really interesting architecture too.

Latvia is a hockey nation, and luckily for us there were two warm-up games for the Ice Hockey World Championships (taking place in Switzerland at the end of May) between Latvia and Norway. The weather was perfect for it, and we managed to get tickets for the second game without too much trouble.

The atmosphere was great, Latvia won the game, we had a relly nice evening 👍and the next morning, the sun was back. Before continuing our journey, we wanted to visit Riga’s famous Art Nouveau district.

There are also many embassies in this neighborhood, including the embassies of Ukraine and Russia, which are practically neighbors… Despite the Russian border not being far away, support for Ukraine is openly visible and fully embraced. Ukrainian flags, posters, and messages of solidarity are everywhere, especially in the park facing the Russian embassy.

 And what can you even say about the decoration on the neighboring building…

If that’s what the ambassador sees from his office window every day, perhaps his days feel a little long, and he probably doesn’t go out into the city very often 😅.

But we had to move on because we had an appointment that day in the far north of the country, just a few kilometers from the Estonian border, at Ilze’s place. Wanting to experience something different, meet people on a deeper level, immerse ourselves more fully in local cultures, and — let’s admit it — get out of the van for a while and make ourselves useful, we decided to try WWOOFing. For those unfamiliar with the concept, WWOOF stands for “World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.” It’s a network of organic farms created in the 1970s in the UK, offering volunteers the chance to work on farms, exchange knowledge, and meet people in return for food and accommodation. Since then, the network has expanded all over the world, and the variety of projects and opportunities has grown enormously. Today, several platforms connect people who run farms or other kinds of projects with travelers willing to lend a hand and enjoy a different — and affordable — travel experience.

That’s how we got in touch with Ilze. Around twenty years ago, Ilze and her husband Aldis bought this old coaching inn/farm where they developed several activities: some tourist accommodation, summer camps for children, horseback riding camps (they have horses, goats, rabbits, and even a stork), small-scale catering with themed evenings, and Aldis’s pride and joy — a distillery where he produces several liqueurs: whisky, limoncello, gin, vodka, and… calvados. Because apparently you have to come all the way to Latvia to enjoy a little glass of calva — worth the detour as Aldis's is actually very good 😉.

Needless to say, they were quite happy to have a carpenter show up 😂. During our week there, we helped them prepare for the upcoming season: gardening (flowers, vegetables, fruit trees), building a vegetable beds, and the week’s main project — constructing a terrace.

But above all, we shared over that week the daily life of Ilze, Aldis, and their three boys — Andrzej, Gustav, and Ernest — met the neighbors, attended the festival in the small town of Valka right on the border,

and learned so much about Latvian and Baltic culture. Exactly what we came looking for 😊. A huge thank-you to them for their warm hospitality, openness, and energy. Through their efforts to bring life to their rural community and connect cultures, they truly are an inspiring example.

So our first WWOOFing experience was more than positive — and that’s perfect because we’ll soon be doing another stay like this in Finland, about 45 minutes from Helsinki, with Lisa. Another wonderful experience looking ahead.

But before that, we still have one more Baltic country left to discover: Estonia.

No doubt we’ll still have plenty to tell you in the next chapter 😄.

To see the map and the photos: click here

Jérôme and Sophie