Chapter 9 - LATVIA! (Lettland)

After a comfy night's sleep in the tent pitched on piney forest floor, we breakfasted with a Swedish cycle tourist and exchanged stories for a while before making our way out of Klaipeda towards the Latvia border following European cycle route number 10.

Eurovelo route 10 has probably been the most scenic of our trip so far, making today an absolute biker's paradise (except for the unfinished bit of EV10 on deep deep sand and the 22km of A road (which has the same size designation as a motorway)) but we'll forgive Lithuania for that because the cycle route building is very much underway. We'll be left with memories of pine forest, sand dunes and blue skies, very much like a Dali painting.

Today we;
...went over the 2000 miles mark(imperial day!).
...saw the Baltic Sea for the first time today - very satisfying after 6 weeks on the road.
...ate far too many biscuits.
...got applauded as we crossed the border.
...found 2 shops in the same village with 10 varieties of tomato pasta sauces which all contained a tonne of added sugar. Yuck. (We have enough sugar consumption on the menu already, thanks to baltic bread and biscuits!)
...are the only people on our small private campsite.
...are going to try and go to bed by 11pm despite it not being dark, to finally adjust to the timezone we've been for a week!

Its seems the area we are currently in is well populated by small private campsites each eith their own unique charm and flair, run by old people on a piece of their land.

The water here, like in Lithuania, smells and tastes like metal...the carbonated bottled water also tastes pretty disgusting (strangely like salt). Thankfully it's not so hot at the moment that we need to drink much of it!Read more