Heading south out of Parnu on Riia Mnt (= Riga Street), we stopped after 2 miles at a huge shopping mall on the left. The Rimi supermarket had all we need (including a few American DVD films at €1.85 per DVD – with soundtracks in a choice of English, Lithuanian or Russian, subtitled in Estonian or Latvian).

Continuing down the E67/rd 4, which follows the Baltic coast down to Riga (capital of Latvia), there was a hotel/camping sign pointing right at 33 miles. Probably near the shore, hidden behind the continuous fringe of mixed forest.

At 40 miles we crossed the border by the Estonian village of Ikla, driving straight through into the Latvian ship-building and former naval town of Ainazi, with no passport checks. Amazing progress, with all 3 former FSU countries now not only independent republics but EU members (and so included in our motorhome insurance). This north-eastern region of Latvia is called Vidzeme and the Baltic Highway now ran closer to the Vidzeme coast, with occasional glimpses of empty strand and grey sea. The road was now signed 'A1' but that didn't apply to its surface, grooved by heavy lorries and logging trucks!

After 6 Latvian miles we passed a sign to camping by the sea (probably closed) and continued into the busy port of Salacgrivas at the mouth of the Salaca River. At 48 miles traffic lights and road works caused a long delay on the Salaca bridge, where we had a good view of the harbour stacked with logs awaiting shipment, as at Parnu.

We noticed that fuel cost slightly less than in Estonia: 0.777 lat per litre (about €1, or less than £1), with diesel no cheaper than petrol. The current exchange rate is 0.81 lat = £1 or 0.71 lat = €1.

5 miles south of Salacgrivas, just after crossing another river in the village of Svetciems, turn right (signed for 'Rakari') along half a mile of rough gravel road towards the sea, to a surprisingly modern hotel/restaurant/camping built in 2007 (see http://www.rakaricamp.lv/en/). We have the spacious all-year campsite to ourselves, with the use of toilets and shower in the hotel as all outside water has been turned off for winter. There is free WiFi inside the hotel too, though as usual the outdoor connectivity is intermittent.

Rakari is one of 15 members of the Latvian Camping Association (http://www.camping.lv/English/index.php with an interactive map) , any of which issue a brochure with all campsite details and a discount card. This gives a 10% reduction on any further sites used (but not the first one).

After lunch and an afternoon's writing, we watched one of our new DVDs. Kevin Costner should be ashamed of his performance as an Elvis impersonator in such rubbish as '3000 Miles to Graceland'! We hope the rest aren't as bad, though at least they cost very little. We've been spoilt by watching some excellent films lately and have become more sensitive to good acting and directing – a recent example being the brilliant Johnny Cash biopic 'Walk the Line' with an intense portrayal by Joaquin Phoenix.  

After a stormy night we had our first taste of wintry weather, with a bitter wind from the north.

A day or two ago Barry had emailed Darren of Motorhome Medics in Cheltenham with a progress report. Darren had sourced our Flair motorhome in the USA, imported it into the UK, modified and registered it and, since then and with partner Martin, has serviced and maintained it. After over 4,000 miles since last leaving Cheltenham, most of it in Scandinavia with over 1,000 miles above the Arctic Circle, we could report no problems at all. Everything was working as it should be and no air pressures or fluids had needed any topping up – except the petrol.

The very next morning, as the engine was started to leave the campsite in Parnu, the electric step refused to retract. No amount of switching, jiggering or pokering would cause it to change its mind. For over 50 miles yesterday we drove south with the step sticking out, wary of pedestrians' legs. Arriving at Svetciems, Barry rang Darren, who was as amused as Margaret had been at the turn of events. But Darren was able to give some good advice, including, if all else failed (which it did), how to remove a split pin and rod to enable the step to be moved in and out manually. So today the problem was solved – or rather passed over to Darren when next we meet.  

After lunch we braved a short walk to the sandy beach, through pine forest dotted with picnic tables and a simple summer parking and camping area. Once we left the shelter of the woods, we didn't linger on the dunes – just long enough to photograph the turbulent sea and return to the warmth of the motorhome.

We dined in style in the Rakari Restaurant, with a seafaring theme – not just the dιcor but the menu. For example, we chose the 'Man Overboard' (pork chop with potatoes & salad) and 'Chicken Mutiny' (chicken fillet with potatoes & salad). For breakfast we could have had 'Boatswain under the Blanket' (ham & cheese toastie) or a 'Jump in an Icehole' (hot vegetarian sandwich)! For soups, there was 'Salvage of a Wreck' (solyanka with meat), 'Storm in a Teacup' (white wine & fish) or 'In Search of the Horny Fish' (solyanka with sea products). 'Hullabaloo in the Deep' (steamed salmon with potato & cream shrimp sauce) lay beyond our budget!

Back to the E67/A1 to drive towards Riga, through squalls of rain. For 5 miles the Highway ran close to the Baltic, its silent white dunes visible through the pines with one or two empty parking areas. We passed the site of a camp we'd used 4 years ago (Meleku Licis) but it had disappeared, the land now for sale. Then the road turned a couple of miles inland and headed due south, straight and level through a forest devoid of settlements, or much else.

At 20 miles a gaudy sign pointed right for Munchausen's Museum: a waxworks of historical Latvian figures in the Baron's former home. Not on our itinerary! The coastal Camping Lauca was signed on the right 3 miles later.

We bypassed the seaside resort of Saulkrasti (exit right at 31 miles), continuing on the now improved A1 and pausing after another 3 miles at a new fuel station/cafι (petrol 0.765 lat/litre = £0.95 or €1.08). They accepted credit cards and also sold LPG. At 43 miles we crossed the Gauja River, with 3 campsites signed nearby (eg Camping Gauja, left before the bridge). The Gauja Valley forms a National Park further inland between Sigulda and Valmiera, where we explored the forests and castles back in 1999.

The A1 gradually became busier, Polish trucks keen to pass as we drove into the outskirts of Riga, with housing, factories and more fuel stations. At 50 miles we ignored rd 51, which turns right into the capital, and continued south for 15 miles on A4 – an unimproved road grooved by heavy lorries. Meeting A6, we turned right into Salaspils, a town 13 miles SE of Riga with a grim history. It was still raining with a blustery wind (7Ί C outside at 11.30 am).

At 67 miles, just beyond the junction with A5, we took a right turn off A6, inconspicuously signed to the Salaspils Memorial - the site of Kurtenhof, a German concentration camp operating from 1941-44. The lane led us through a mile of woods, past a church graveyard where a funeral was taking place and over the ominous railway line to a car park.

We walked the path to and around the site in astonishment. The large clearing in the forest is dominated by several massive crude concrete sculptures and a monstrous sloping bunker of concrete, housing a very small exhibition of drawings and information. There is also a strange oblong block of polished grey stone, dated 1995, that emits a regular sound like a heartbeat. All this blocked the opportunity of experiencing the horror of the camp itself.

Nothing remains of the original work and holding camp, where between 2,000 and 3,000 prisoners died, most of them Jewish and many of them children. Earlier Russian estimates of 100,000 dead have been discredited recently: this wasn't an extermination camp and prisoners died from the abuse of overwork and primitive conditions. A few tributes had been left by visitors in the form of toys or Christian icons but there are no Jewish candles or Hebrew inscriptions – Latvian and Russian only. Our guidebook translates the words of a Latvian writer imprisoned here, now engraved on the bunker: 'Behind this gate the earth groans'. Chilled both physically and emotionally, we returned to the motorhome for a warming lunch.

Back at the A6 we turned left towards Salaspils, then almost immediately right onto A5 southwards. This road, its condition (and ours) aggravated by road works, skirts the western side of a lake built by the Russians in the Daugava River to provide hydro-electric power and water for Riga. It was a relief to leave the dam wall at 73 miles, turning right at a roundabout, then left at the next, onto the A7. After this industrial area we reached more fields and forest, though still busy with trucks, heading south for Bauska and the Lithuanian border.

On the left of the highway, 3 miles short of Iecava, we spotted a caravan/camping sign outside Brencis Motel on the left. It offers free overnight parking and outside toilets, with a charge of 5 lat to use one of the 5 hook-up points. Hot showers are available in the motel for 1 lat per person, and there is a small restaurant and free WiFi. We're surprised that it's ACSI-listed, having no real camping facilities, but it is open all year and we were pleased to stop, in heavy wind and rain.

Tuning in to the internet it was good to hear from Rod, newly arrived in Finikounda for a winter at Camping Finikes and Keith Dear updated us on his recent unhappy stay at Camping Sapanta near the Merry Cemetery in the Maramures region of Romania.

Iecava, Latvia to Suwalki, Poland (via Lithuania)     Swiss Club TIR     €5     215 miles     540 ft asl

Still raining as we continued south on A7/E67, through Iecava. Children walking to school wore woolly hats and little satchels on their backs. What do they learn of their history? We'd left the forest and now saw ploughed fields, apple orchards and stands of woodland. Tractors were at work, with none of the cart-horses seen in earlier years on both land and roads.

After 18 miles, in the Zemgale (Southern Latvian) town of Bauska, we paused by a Rimi supermarket/fuel at a roundabout to consider our route. We could turn west, past Pilsrundale (Rundale Palace), then south into Lithuania for the Hill of Crosses (north of Siauliai) - but we had visited both these places in quieter days (see 16 Oct 1999).

As it was now pouring with rain we decided to skip the diversion and head south on A7, crossing into Lithuania at 29 miles. The Norwegian motorhome entering Latvia was the first we'd seen since Parnu, where there were a few Finns returning home. With no border checks (these took 2 hours in 1999), we continued on A10/E67, a busy truck route with fuel and motels at regular intervals. Lithuanian currency is the Lita, currently 4.1 to the Pound Sterling, and we noticed petrol was exactly 4.1 Litas per litre (diesel and LPG cost less).

At 68 miles we turned right onto A17 to bypass the city of Panevezys, exiting 12 miles later onto E67/A8. Continuing south for Kaunas, through the small town of Ramygala at 90 miles, we crossed flat rainswept agricultural land, the tractors carrying newly lifted beet or turnips, winter wheat starting to sprout. Just past the exit for Kedainiai we finally saw a rare layby to stop for lunch. Meeting the A1 at 126 miles (a real 4-lane motorway which links Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, with its largest port, Klaipeda), we turned left towards Kaunas, the country's second city.

Kaunas developed around a strategically placed 11th C castle (now a ruin) at the confluence of the Nemunas and Neris Rivers and grew to become the capital of Lithuania from 1920-39, while Vilnius was in Polish hands. Not wanting to negotiate the narrow Old Town (nor the pedestrianised New Town beyond), we turned right from A1 onto A5, skirting the west side of the city.

In an extensive area 7 km (nearly 5 miles) north-west of the city centre, just west of the A1/A5 interchange, lies 'IX Fortas' (the Ninth Fort) which we did visit, though it took some finding! Going south on the A5 dual carriageway, we unknowingly passed the very first exit, just before a Statoil garage, that leads along a narrow unsigned lane to the Fort. Reaching the bridge over the Nemunas River, we realised we'd gone too far, so turned back towards Kaunas at the next opportunity. We almost missed the exit on this side, shortly before the A1 junction, with a faded old sign 'IX Fortas'. This road led us under the highway, after which we were left to flounder on narrow lanes until suddenly a stark monumental sculpture of agonised faces and clenched fists appeared on the hillside. Turning towards this landmark, we eventually found the Fort car park, still unsigned.  

The extensive moated 19th C fort, built by Tsarist Russia on its (Nemunas River) border with Prussia, was again used by Russians during the First World War to defend their western frontier against Germany. In World War Two the Germans turned the fort into a death camp and murdered an estimated 50,000 people here, mainly Jewish: 30,000 from Lithuania itself, including the Kaunas ghetto, along with convoys sent from France, Germany, Poland … the list goes on. Returned to Russian hands under Stalin, the building became a Soviet prison and site of execution.

This dark and brutal history is very well presented in two separate museums (open 10 am–6 pm except Monday in summer; 10 am-4 pm except Mon and Tues in winter). The Old Museum, in the fort itself, covers the period up to the end of WW2, with displays of heart-rending photos, artefacts and documents (labelled in English and Lithuanian) in those very cells, from which so few escaped. There was, however, one successful break-out by a group of Body Burners. Their infernal role was to exhume the bodies of victims and burn them, hiding evidence of the atrocities – a task they could no longer endure.

One cell was devoted to Chiune Siguhara, the Japanese consul in Lithuania from 1939-40. With the help of a Dutch diplomat, he saved some 6,000 lives by issuing transit visas (against orders) to Polish Jews who were fleeing the advancing German terror.

The New Museum, a modern structure nearby incorporating a chapel, concentrates on the Soviet era. Photos of Hitler and Stalin, with their henchmen Ribbentrop and Molotov, are shown at their evil duplicitous plans to share out Poland and the Baltic Republics. The long post-war years of Russian occupation, resistance, execution or deportation are well documented. Exhibitions of objects painstakingly made in the Siberian prison camps include meticulous needlework, socks knitted from dog-hair and a skilfully carved chess set.

They reminded us of similar exhibits we've seen in Riga's 'Museum of the Occupation of Latvia', or Tallinn's 'Museum of Occupation & Fight for Freedom': the three Baltic Republics sharing their grim history. In Kaunas there is also a 'Museum of Deportation & Resistance', as well as 'Sugihara House' telling the full story of the 'Japanese Schindler' – these we left unvisited (till the next time).

We must thank the kindness of a member of the New Museum staff for enabling this experience. The old lady in the ticket booth (speaking only Lithuanian) turned us away when we tried to pay the entry fee (2 Lt per person per museum) in Euros. As we left, disappointed, a younger woman called after us in English 'Please, come back, you are welcome'. She issued us with tickets for both museums free of charge - a very touching gesture – and allowed us to take photographs. However, we didn't know that an extra camera fee was payable and Barry was severely reprimanded by a different custodian in the Old Museum.

Outside the Fort, the sculpture that led us there stands on the site of the mass grave. Other notable memorials include that from the friends and relatives in France of a convoy of young Jewish men sent here to their deaths and – incredibly – a plaque from the city of Munich (describing itself as Bavarian, rather than part of Germany). Translated from the German, it reads:

“In sorrow and shame – and appalled by the silence of the (German) bystanders – the provincial capital of Bavaria, Munich (in Germany), commemorates the 1,000 (German) Jewish men and women, who were deported (by Germans) on 20 November 1941 from Munich to Kaunas and were brutally murdered at this site (by Germans) five days later.” (We supplied the missing words in italics)

Back in the motorhome, late on this cold wet afternoon, we needed a pot of tea before finding our way back to the A5/E67 to drive south, crossing the Nemunas River again at 142 miles. The busy 4-lane highway turned south-west 7 miles later towards Marijampole, as drivers flashed warnings of a lurking police speed trap.

We saw nowhere for camping or an overnight stay along our route, apart from a large TIR truck park at 174 miles, short of the exit for Marijampole. We bypassed the town on A5 and continued towards the Polish border, now signed 'Warsaw'. At 200 miles, a mile before the frontier, we stopped to fill our tank at the last Lithuanian fuel station. Some trucks were parked there for the night but it was noisy and we know a better place in Poland.

Entering Poland, our third country today and again with no passport check or queue, we recalled how impossible this would have been a decade ago, with delays of two and more hours at every border. Poland is on Central European Time (1 hour behind Finland and the Baltics), so it was only 5.30 pm as we drove along the immediately narrower and twisting rd 8/E67 in the rain and half-light of dusk. We passed a cluster of cabins offering currency (the Zloty at about 4.4 = £1) and Vignettes (only needed by HGVs). There were also several TIR parking places along the way, advertising WC/showers, internet and bar, though not electric hook-ups.

Just 15 miles into Poland there is a good TIR park on the left, a couple of miles before the town of Suwalki, which we've used twice before. Inside the 'Swiss Bar Club' is a restaurant/bar with a cosy log fire, as well as modern toilets, hot showers (for a small fee), and free WiFi internet accessible inside or out. We were soon enjoying large pork chops smothered in cheese and mushrooms, followed by lemon cheesecake or delicious hot apple pie with ice cream.

We paid by credit card, then sat by the log fire to check emails before returning to the motorhome, to look out an extra blanket and hot water bottle for the bed! The night watchman came by for some money and was happy with a €5 note – in fact he tried to give us a few Zloty in change, though we didn't take it, not envying his job as a cold hard rain swept across the lorry park.

(for the next stage in this journey, click: In Poland 2010)