After eating breakfast at 8am, it was time to get back on the road. This day consisted crossing two borders, Latvia and Lithuania. Parnu is located south of Estonia, so it wasn't a long drive before we prepared our passports for the border officials ... Just to find out that the border was closed. We'll, the border was open but no-one was checking anything so there's even no need to stop while driving to another country. Didn't know that, now I do. European Union has made things a lot easier for road trippers - Yet I don't think it's a completely good thing. Like Aleksi said, we could have had a bomb in our trunk and nobody would have cared. Strange stuff (disclaimer: We don't have bombs in our car).
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| Baltic Sea on the background, dumbasses on the foreground |
First 20 km's in Latvia were horrible, as the road had massive grooves and bumps in it and it was tough to keep our car going straight. We knew we would have to deal with bad road conditions sooner or later, but didn't think it was happening this soon! But after that rough section roads were in decent enough condition. We drove Via Baltica route and stopped couple of times to see the Baltic Sea before arriving to Riga, the capital of Latvia.
After parking the car near to the Riga old quarters, we just started walking around and I can say that the city, especially the old historical parts of it are just amazingly beautiful. They keep it in mint condition but still not overriding the history of it. For budget travelers, we made a calculation error in the currencies, as Latvia's currency Lati is actually stronger than Euro, not the other way around. We ended paying about three times the usual price for our foods...
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| Old quarters, Riga, Latvia |
Just as we were about to leave, we noticed an expensive Mercedes parked nearby with strange licence plate including only a national logo or something and a police escort. Surprisingly, it was the car of Latvia's president and we got to see the main man as the police escort drove off.
We drove off as well, saying soon goodbyes to Latvia and preparing ourselves to border officials of Lithuania. Once again, not one soul occupying the border station and we were able to change countries once again without passports. Somewhere around 7pm we arrived to Vilnius, also a capital city. After finding our hostel for the night we enjoyed walking Vilnius streets for a while and drank coupla of beers, before falling asleep.
Well, except I had alarm ready for the 6th NHL final. Never thought I'd watch hockey in Lithuania, but glad I did. Go Bruins!
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| Soldiers guarding the victory monument in Riga |
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| A sight from Riga |
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| Small and old streets in Vilnius |
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| Town hall square in Vilnius |
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