Day 518: Back to Poland, via Riga

Lots more travelling today! Breakfast was provided by our guest house which was quite nice although basic, then we hit the road around 9. It was about 5 hours drive back to Riga in Latvia, and it was mostly along back roads and stuff - still not many freeways in this part of the world. I've found the signage to be quite poor as well: instead of saying "turn off for <x> in 200m", it usually just says "turn off for <x>". If you're not expecting it, you might be in for a detour around the block!

Made it back to Riga around 3pm after some stops for petrol, a car wash and some lunch and dropped the car off. I was a bit nervous since it was a cheap and dodgy car rental agency and the "damage report" they'd provided showed a bunch of scratches on the car I couldn't even see! The guy looked it over and said it was all fine, but then pulled a face and said "there's just one problem". Apparently the floor mats were too dirty!!! There was a bit of dirt and sand there, sure, but nothing that wasn't from normal use. I rolled my eyes and made a big show of putting all our luggage down to clean the mats, and the guy relented and said it was fine, he'd clean them himself for free. Thanks mate. I guess.

Shuttle bus to the airport where we checked in with no dramas (flying Air Baltic for the first time!), and then waited for the flight which took off on time and went smoothly.

Touched down in Warsaw around 5pm (we'd lost an hour due to time zones between Poland and Lithuania), grabbed our luggage and then an Uber to the apartment. My driver's licence and replacement credit card had been delivered and were waiting which was absolutely amazing, I honestly thought at times it'd never work and I'd have to fly home or something.

We celebrated with beers, chocolate, and some supermarket pierogi - little Polish dumplings that are similar to Chinese ones though usually boiled rather than steamed.

First time in Warsaw for us, and we're looking forward to checking it out tomorrow. It's apparently one of the largest cities in the EU these days!Read more