Biking Along the Baltic Sea

Our 63-mile ride today (Thursday), from Riga to a resort in northeastern Latvia, ran parallel and close to the Baltic seacoast. It was a day of beautiful scenery: some of the coast, some in forests near the coast, and some in resort towns.

The three Baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) lie on the eastern side of the Baltic Sea. As we were told by a Latvian a few days ago, the peoples of these countries consider themselves to be "brothers" with those from Finland, Norway, and Sweden, which are on the northern and western sides of the Baltic Sea.

On our way out of Riga

Just north of Riga

Nice spot for a mid-morning break

A beach on the Baltic Sea

Cycling along the coast

A beautiful seaside home

Arriving at our resort hotel at the end of our ride

A Day to Learn About Latvia

Almost every day during our trip, we take time after we reach our destination to read about the places we've been through that day. We do our research online, thanks mainly to Google and Wikipedia. Today (Wednesday) was a rest day in Riga, so our "learning" was accomplished by walking extensively and visiting a few sites. As we walked, we often chose streets that are noted for their art nouveau buildings. We also visited two museums (a rarity for us): The Museum of the Occupation of Latvia from 1941-1991 and the Museum of Jews in Latvia. We had a few minute delay before being admitted to the Occupation Museum, as we waited for a Korean Government delegation to end their tour of the museum and race away in police-escorted limousines.

Latvia was, to its great detriment, occupied by Russia or Germany from 1940 to 1991. Under the infamous Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939, which divided northern and eastern Europe into German and Russian spheres of influence, Russia "got" Latvia and forcibly annexed it shortly thereafter. In June 1941, the Germans invaded and drove out the Russians, and held Latvia until 1944. From 1944 until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Latvia was again under Russian control.

Each of these occupying powers was brutal, though in different ways. Russia sent many Latvians to Siberian camps as political prisoners, set up secret surveillance networks looking out for "enemies of the state", took farms from landowners and handed them to peasants (thus drastically reducing agricultural output), and tried to stamp out religion and other aspects of Latvian culture. The Germans brutally and efficiently rounded up and murdered tens of thousands of Jews (including 25,000 murdered in two days in late 1941 in a forest near Riga), as well as approximately 2000 Gypsies. Latvians played both positive and negative roles in the German actions: there were Latvian collaborators who voluntarily aided the Germans, while other Latvians hid Jews and saved the lives of several hundred of them.

Latvia gained its independence from Russia in 1991. Since then, it has been working to move into the modern world, making up for decades of lost time.

Some of our photos of the famous art nouveau buildings in Riga follow:

Riga: Vibrant City Center, Dilapidated Neighborhoods Nearby

We arrived in Riga, the capital of Latvia, at noon today (Tuesday). After we crossed a cool new bridge to enter the city from the south, the first few miles of the city we biked through were terribly depressing: buildings in near-ruinous states that should have been condemned, but many of which had occupants living in them. We began to wonder what it was going to be like staying in the city for two days, since we had scheduled a rest day here.

A few blocks before reaching our hotel, things changed dramatically. The historic town center, where we are staying, is in marvelous shape. It is on UNESCO's World Heritage List for its architecture, in part due to its plethora of Art Nouveau buildings, a style of art and architecture dating to 1890-1914. The UNESCO listing states that "it is generally recognized that Riga has the finest collection of art nouveau buildings in Europe".

Not surprisingly, the town center is bustling with tourists and has a thriving night life. In all likelihood, the tourists arrive at the town center on major roads, not the smaller bikable roads on which we entered, so that they have no idea about the horrendous neighborhoods very close by.

The following pictures (after the one of the bridge into Riga) include 4 from the dilapidated parts we first biked through (though the actual buildings looked even worse than they do in these pictures) followed by 4 from the historic town center.

Crossing the new Southern Bridge into Riga

Our hotel

Windblown Into Latvia

This morning (Monday), we left Panevezys, Lithuania, expecting to bike 44 miles to Birzai (also in Lithuania) and then cycle 64 miles to Riga, Latvia the next day. The weather prediction (which we check carefully every day) called for wind at our back today & into our face tomorrow, so we decided to bike further today & thus leave a shorter distance for tomorrow's into-the-wind ride. Our internet search for lodging beyond Birzai was unsuccessful, so we stopped into a tourist information office on route and they identified a guest house in Vecumnieki, Latvia, 30 miles beyond Birzai. So we rode 74 miles today, leaving only 34 for tomorrow. A special feature was that, when we reached the guest house, it turned out that we're staying in our own 2-bedroom, 2-story house at a cost of only $20!

Our prior 2 nights' towns of Kaunas & Panevezys, in Lithuania, demonstrate the importance of historical preservation in old cities and towns. Kaunas has a wonderful old part of town, and is a thriving town full of tourists who come to visit the historic town center. It is full of excellent restaurants, hotels, shops, and night clubs. Panevezys, on the other hand, was damaged in WWII and then had its old town destroyed by the Soviets, who turned it into an industrial center. It now is full of decaying buildings, has few people on the streets, and the only restaurant choices are a couple of pizza joints.

About a week ago, from June 24-28, Panevezys was the site of the International Youth Basketball Global Games, which included teams from Lithuania, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Latvia, and USA.

The one nice feature of Panevezys is the pond near the city center

A Lithuanian babushka commuting to the market

Entering Latvia

A nice dwelling on our route in Latvia

These Latvian kids were fascinated by two Americans in their small town, and enjoyed practicing the few English words they knew (e.g., "What's your name?")

Our two-bedroom, two-story, $20 house for the night

Crossing the "Longest Bridge in the World"

After a week of rides that were nearly 70 miles in length each day (quite a bit longer than our preferred length of 55 miles per day), our ride today (Saturday) was a nice respite at 36 miles in length. It was a pleasure arriving at our destination city of Kaunas at 1 pm, giving us time to wander around the marvelous old part of the town. Our preliminary sense yesterday that Lithuania is a hip, trendy place was certainly borne out today. Not only do the young and middle-aged people dress extremely fashionably, but even the elderly generally dress in modern garb (unlike the old women in Poland, whom we saw most often dressed like "babushkas").

Kaunas is the second largest city in Lithuania, with a population of about 400,000. We entered it by crossing the Vytautas the Great Bridge across the Nemunas River. For a few years around 1800, it was said jokingly to be the longest bridge in the world, since one side of the bridge was in Prussia and the other in Russia. It therefore was the boundary between the Julian and Gregorian calendars, in effect making the short trip across it take 12 days (since the two calendars differed by 12 days).

According to the official Kaunas tour guide, one of the attractions of the city occurs on Saturdays, when the numerous weddings on the town square are a sight to behold. We saw at least five weddings going on during the hour or so that we were around the square. Each one featured a beautifully dressed bride and groom, a large party all decked out in the finest clothes, and at least one stretch limo.

One of the many nice houses we passed in the countryside today

Most, but evidently not all, Lithuanians have melded well into the modern world

The "longest bridge in the world"

A happy view of Kaunas from the bridge

The main square in the Old Town section of Kaunas

A wedding party in the square

Bride and groom from another wedding

Street scene from our outdoor lunch table

A Wet Welcome to Lithuania

Today's 63 mile ride began in Olecko, Poland. We crossed into Lithuania at mile 44 and continued 19 more miles to our destination town of Marijampole, Lithuania. The ride was characterized by intermittent rain, sometimes heavy, wind blowing into us for much of the time, and an 11 mile stretch (part in Poland, part in Lithuania) on a busy highway with a minuscule shoulder about 1.5 feet wide for us to bike on. In view of these factors, we were very relieved to get to our destination, a beautiful 4-star hotel.

Nineteen miles of cycling does not give us too much information upon which to base a judgment of a country, but a couple of items stood out. Unlike Poland, in which every town's centerpiece is a massive church, none have been evident in the two Lithuanian towns we've seen. More strikingly, Lithuania seems to have a very hip, trendy feel to it, which is especially noticeable in the way that young people dress. In a few hours in Lithuania, we've already seen more slim young women in stylish, tight-fitting jeans than we did in 8 days in Poland. We'll know better in a few days if these preliminary observations hold up, but suspect that the larger towns in all three Baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) will have a similar hip feel to them.

Check out the link on the right to pictures from our ride through Poland. We've just added a lot more pictures, now that we're done with that part of the trip.

The last sizable Polish town we passed though

Entering Lithuania

A two-mile long line of trucks at the border, waiting to get into Poland

Beautiful field of yellow flowers in Lithuania

Our excellent hotel in Marijampole

A view of Marijampole's main square from our hotel room

Our Last Full Day in Poland

Today (Thursday) was our seventh day biking in Poland, and our last full day here since tomorrow's ride will take us into Lithuania. As the country on our trip so far that's differed the most from home, it's been the most interesting. We've seen more buildings, cars, and roads in poor repair than in the Western European countries we'd been through prior to reaching Poland, but we also saw wonderful villages and towns and beautiful countryside. We could barely communicate with people, but found them to be very gracious and helpful when they knew what we were seeking. We couldn't read menus very well, but managed to eat plenty of delicious food, including Polish specialties such as pierogis, kielbasa, and goulash.

Poland was far less bikable than England, Belgium, Holland, and Germany, with most roads lacking shoulders and bike lanes, and pavement often in mediocre-to-poor condition, but once we learned how to avoid the very busy roads the cycling was generally very pleasant. Furthermore, even though we had been warned that Polish drivers are reckless, their behavior towards us was uniformly wonderful, with all cars and trucks giving us wide berth whenever possible as they passed us.

Tomorrow, we're in for a new set of unknowns when we enter Lithuania: language, roads, food, ...

Here are a few pictures from our ride today:

Cleaning out the gears before starting out today

An outdoor market

Entering a walled city

One of numerous lakes we saw today