The information that follows was usefully provided by Keith and Jenny to supplement our recent article: In the Baltics - Summer 2009 . In total, they motorhomed 4,000 miles from Dover back to Dover.
During our Baltic trip we traversed
Germany on the A2/A12, crossing into Poland at Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, then proceeding
as follows: Poznan-Torun-Olstzyn-Suwalki-Kaunas-Riga-Parnu-Tallin-Toila-Tartu-Riga(again)-Vilnius-Druskininkai-Bialystok-Bialowieska
National Park-Warsaw-Katowice-Wroclaw-Dresden-Calais!
Obviously we spent time in many of
these places/areas and thoroughly enjoyed the trip and the weather, which was pretty
well all sunshine and warmth. Riga
remains our favourite site and city. We also particularly enjoyed the largely empty
and very natural Estonia, benefiting
from its proximity to Finland.
We had travelled as far as Riga two years ago but realised this time that we had
not paused long enough in places then (no surprise to us really). Vilnius is amazing for the
sheer quantity of beautiful churches.
Currency-exchange-wise (to the
pound sterling), we managed Poland
4.85, Estonia
18.2. After last year, Poland
was a relief, as it was then around 4.1.
We found the Baltic Highway to be nearly always excellently
surfaced all the way up to Tallin, although usually quite narrow. Other roads were
variable, but nearly always better than in the past.
We did visit the Chernobyl-like reactor
in Lithuania
in 2007 and were surprised by the hospitality and openness of the female PR official
there, who couldn't stop showering data upon us. We were amazed at the huge size
and sheer length of the cooling pipes, which appeared to be fairly new. They go
for a few miles to the town and back, presumably providing cheap central heating?
A bit like New York,
maybe.
We were favourably impressed with the
friendliness of the natives in the Baltics - quiet but, once engaged, we did manage
a few lengthy and interesting conversations, nearly always with the younger
element of course.
We found that public transport was
free to us (over-65s) in Tallin, Tartu and Riga but not in Vilnius.
This was also nearly the case in Poland
(Warsaw and Wroclaw), where Jenny had to pay half for not
being 70! We were amused when the camp site in Wroclaw tried hard to refuse to sell us just one
bus ticket! We didn't even attempt to explain the 'half price if over-65' bit we
had reason to believe applied there but did manage to confirm that this is the case
in the Old Town centre later.
Perhaps we should add that the camp
site we stayed at in Tallin, Pirita Camping on the harbourside about 2 km to the
east of the town, is much cheaper and has an infinitely better outlook than the
'rip off' enclosed Tallin City Camping. We just wished there had been an alternative
to the equally expensive City Camping at Vilnius
but do not believe there is another city site there. Partly to overcome possible
parking difficulties we like to rely upon leaving our van on site and catching the
bus into city centres, so sites around 20 km away are not much use to us here. Surprisingly,
the City Camping at Riga
is excellently placed and is not expensive either.
One other item which is useful for
anyone wanting to stay around Tartu
is that there is a perfectly good site off the A2 road about 5 km to the west, only
mentioned in the ACSI guide, apparently. Tartu
is a small place, so we managed the parking here by using a mall car park and catching
the bus into the centre.
Also, any visit to Riga is not complete in Keith's opinion without a visit to
the truly excellent RigaMotorMuseum
to the east of the city centre. Highlights here are limo's once reputed to be owned
by Joe Stalin, Kruschchev and Breznev. These come complete with full size models
of the former soviet luminaries in, or holding the doors of, the vehicles. But there
is much more to the museum than this.
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