I really enjoyed exploring the Baltic countries and Finland. Along the way I was able to meet a bunch of awesome people and I had fun exploring each of the countries.
After spending seven weeks in the Caucuses I left and headed to the Baltics with my first stop being Lithuania. I spent a relaxing three days in Vilnius, Lithuania. On my first day I started with a free walking tour on which I was able to get a good overview of the city and learn more about its history. It was an interesting tour and I found the city to be very charming. After the tour I walked around Vilnius and did some shopping, looking to replace some worn clothes, unfortunately I didn’t end up finding anything. It was a nice first day and the weather was beautiful, cool, but also sunny. The next two days were slow and I spent my time wandering around the city and doing some admin work. While it wasn’t a very eventful three days, it was pleasant and relaxed and I enjoyed seeing the cute city of Vilnius. My next stop was heading north to Riga, Latvia. Getting to Riga was an easy four hour bus ride that went through the Lithuanian and Latvian countryside. The countryside of the Baltics looked very similar to the Northern Minnesota countryside.
When I first arrived at my hostel in Riga I met two girls in my room and I ended up going out to dinner with them on my first night there. It was an entertaining evening spent talking and sharing travel stories. My hostel in Riga was right next to one of the big squares and from my room on the top floor there was an amazing view of the square. On my first full day in Riga I started with a free walking tour of the city and found it to be another charming, old European town, similar to Vilnius but with a smaller and more compact old town area. Once the walking tour ended I headed over to Riga Central Market, which is a large market with food stalls, souvenirs, a fruit market and more. My first stop while there was to find lunch after which I wandered around the market and bought some delicious fresh fruit. After walking around the market I headed back to my hostel and hung out there for a little while and waited out the rain that had started coming down. By the time it stopped raining it was already evening so I headed out to a nearby restaurant for a dinner of local foods. While at dinner my night took a turn for the worse. I was trying to use my earbuds and found that they weren’t working. My first thought was that my earbuds had finally given out and died, however when I got back to my hostel and tried different earbuds I found that nothing worked and to my dismay I discovered that my iPhone was having other problems as well. The rest of my evening was spent troubleshooting a fix for my phone and then doing a search to find an Apple authorized store; fortunately there was one in Riga.
I started my second day in Riga by going to the Apple authorized store to have my iPhone repaired. What I originally thought would be a quick fix turned into multiple hours spent at the store; there were some very stressful moments. My seemingly small issue was apparently a big problem and I needed a whole new iPhone that luckily was still covered by AppleCare. However, getting the new iPhone wasn’t as easy as I was hoping it would be as I was told it could potentially take a week to get the new iPhone to the store since they had to deal with shipping my broken phone back to Apple. This could be a problem because I was only planning on spending that day and the next in Riga. After spending multiple hours at the store, I finally left; thankfully with a loaner iPhone that they gave me to use while waiting for my new phone. My first stop of the afternoon, after taking care of my phone issues, was to a KGB museum. When I got to the museum I learned you had to book tours online in advance, which I hadn’t done, so I was only able to visit a small free area of the museum. There I was able to learn more about Latvia’s history and its different occupations. I found it to be very informative. After the KGB museum I wandered around the old town for a little while before again having to go back to my hostel and wait out yet another rainstorm. The rest of my evening was pretty chill and relaxed and I spent it planning where I was going next. I especially appreciated the relaxing down time after the stressful morning I’d had.
On my third and final day in Riga I spent the day wandering around the old town and reading in a park. It was a nice day and the weather was beautiful. I picked up a late lunch at a supermarket and ate it at my hostel. As I was finishing my lunch I got an email that my new phone had arrived. I was thrilled! I immediately went to the Apple authorized store to get it. The employees at the store were the absolute nicest people. When I was first there they heard my problem of how I was traveling and that I was not going to be in Riga for a whole week and somehow they were able to pull strings and got my new phone in just one day. Within 20 minutes of getting the email I managed to get to the store and I could tell by one of the employees' reactions that they were surprised by how fast I got there. Once there it was another two hours spent at the store transferring all of my data to the new phone but once it was done I was so relieved to have a working phone again. After finishing at the store I met up with someone from my hostel for a drink and then headed back to the hostel where I met some more people and I spent a fun evening talking and getting to know everyone. Even though I was leaving the next day I ended up making plans to meet up with Emilie and Jasper, two people I had just met, in the next town I was going to.
The next morning I took public transportation out of Riga to a town called Sigulda which is in a national park in Latvia. It is a small town surrounded by lots of nature and different hiking paths. Where I was staying was an old manor style building that used to be a sanatorium; the grounds and building were beautiful. It was outside of town but the area was lovely. That first afternoon I was there I went exploring the nature surrounding where I was staying. The next morning I hiked into town to meet up with Emilie and Jasper at a bobsled track. Google Maps said that it was only an hour walk, however, it was not an easy walk as I first had to go down a very, very large hill, across a valley and then up another very very large hill before making it into town and then continuing just outside of town to the bobsled track. The only plus of the long walk to the track was that the views and nature along the way was beautiful and the weather was perfect. Once at the track I met up with Emilie and Jasper and we were able to ride a bobsled down the bobsled track. The ride was a lot of fun and the bobsled went really fast. After the ride the three of us headed into town and stopped for lunch before walking back down into the valley and crossing to see a cave. The cave turned out to be pretty small, but it was still cool to see and it was fun to walk around in the national park. After seeing the park we parted ways; they headed back to Riga and I headed back up the huge hill to get back to my accommodation. Along the way I wandered around on different hiking trails. It was a really fun day and I got in a ton of steps going up and down the staircases built on the hills. According to my iPhone Health app I climbed up forty flights of stairs. Once back at my accommodation, I spent the rest of the evening relaxing and enjoying the weather and nature. Since I didn’t have any WiFi it was a great disconnect from the internet. Unfortunately, that night my wonderful Chaco sandals that had been with me since the beginning of my trip and I had worn every single day, except for three days on the Ha Giang Loop in Vietnam, broke. I was devastated. My Chacos were unbelievably comfortable sandals and were the shoes that I always wore and that had been with me through 28 countries.
After one and a half days in Sigulda I headed back to Riga to get a bus north to Tallinn, Estonia. As Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are all relatively small countries, it wasn’t a very long bus ride. Once in Tallinn I headed to my hostel, which was a private room with two beds that Emilie had booked. Back in Riga, not long after meeting each other, Emilie offered for me to join her and split the cost of the private room. Since I arrived later in the evening, Emilie and Jasper were already out to dinner and since my feet were sore from wearing new shoes I ate a chill supermarket dinner in the hostel and had a relaxing evening. On my first full day in Estonia Emilie, Jasper, and I started the morning exploring Tallinn with a free walking tour. It was really interesting and I learned that food delivery robots were created in Estonia. Halfway through the tour Emilie and Jasper ran into two people they had met back in Riga so the three of us parted ways from the tour and wandered around the city together with their friends for a little while before stopping for lunch. After lunch we headed towards the water and hung out along the water for a while. It was a fun afternoon spent hanging out with other travelers. That evening the three of us and one other traveler they had met in a different city went out to dinner and then wandered around the city. On our way back to our hostel we saw some of the food delivery robots that were super cute and fun to see in person. They were also fun to mess with; we’d stand in its way and make it move around us. On the second day in Tallinn we spent the day wandering around the city. It was a lot of fun exploring with others. That afternoon we all went to a free concert in a park before going out to dinner later in the evening. It was a fun second day. My third day in Tallinn was really relaxed. Since I had already seen most of the city I spent the day relaxing. Since Emilie left that day to go to Finland I had to switch hostels so I spent some of the day relaxing at my new hostel and later hanging out in a popular square in the old town of Tallinn. That evening Jasper and I met up and went to dinner together before going back to our hostel as I happened to have switched to the same one he was staying at. In the evening we were hanging out outside in the garden of our hostel and there we met other travelers and we spent the evening hanging out with a large group of people from the hostel. It was a fun night.
The next day I took a ferry to Helsinki, Finland. I went to Finland because flights to my next destination were cheaper out of Helsinki than they were from Tallinn. The ferry ride from Tallinn to Helsinki was only about two and a half hours and the ship was so nice; it was like a smaller cruise ship and had multiple dining locations as well as a casino. It was a smooth, quick ride and before I knew it I was in Finland. Since Finland is so expensive I had booked a hostel way outside of the city center so it took a while on the tram to get to my hostel. Once I got there I was able to check in and relax for a while before heading back into the city center to meet up with Emilie and Jasper who were also in Helsinki. We all met up at a free drag show and after hanging out and enjoying the drag show for a while we wandered around Helsinki and then went out to dinner together before meeting up with two Finnish people that Emilie had met the day before when wandering around. That evening the five of us went out for a drink together and it was fun hanging out with and meeting locals. On my first and only full day in Helsinki Emilie, Jasper, and I went on a free walking tour and then wandered around the city on our own. Even though I only spent one full day in Helsinki I was able to see a lot of it and I enjoyed exploring with friends. That evening the three of us went out for dinner together and said our goodbyes as it was our last day together and we were all parting ways and going different ways the next day. Since Finland is such an expensive country I decided not to stay any longer and the next day I headed to the airport to continue onto my next country.
In total I only ended up traveling through the Baltic countries and Finland for just over two weeks. While it was a very fast two plus weeks, I had a lot of fun and was able to see a lot. One thing that surprised me when I got there was how cold the weather was. While there were days of nicer weather, the overall temperature was on the colder side for me, especially since I’d been chasing the sun and hot weather since I began my travels a year prior. The temperature was especially shocking to me since it was early August and before traveling to this region I had figured that in the beginning of August the temperatures would be warmer than they were. Despite the colder weather I had a lot of fun and I enjoyed meeting a bunch of awesome people.
“Live your life by a compass, not a clock.”
- Erica Jong
Σχόλια