Day 27, 24/06/2018. A very long and cold day on the saddle, but Rīga was a worthwhile stop in Latvia before proceeding further up north to end the day at Tallinn in Estonia.

Did an overnight ride from Warsaw to Kaunas, Lithuania, with a 20 minute nap in between. One thing that online maps don’t clearly show is that there aren’t any proper highways anywhere within the Baltic region. It’s impossible to avoid routes that cross through villages, all littered with countless speed cameras, so it’s a very time consuming affair to go from the south to the north.

Another aspect that I did not foresee was that I arrived in Latvia later in the morning without knowing that Jāņi, the holidays of the Summer solstice, meant that 99.9% of shops were closed. Luckily there was a 24-hour pizzeria that was still open for business, which gave me fuel to withstand the wind chill of the Latvian capital of Rīga for a few photos before leaving north for Estonia.

I had to keep on moving because I was getting totally sick of the cold, rainy weather and the northernmost city in Estonia was forecasted to be the least wet out of all the Baltics. I can do a day of rain. A second day is bad but I can withstand it for a bit more. By the third day of rain, I’m just totally over it all.

Got all the way to the northern Baltic capital in Tallinn, with not much left in it for me by the late arvo. There wasn’t much left that needed to happen for me to get a bad flu, but I made it.. and that’s all that matters now as I stay overnight in a neat hotel suite, because it means that I will be able to take it easy for a night and regain the strength to do a smooth run to Saint Petersburg.

The Baltics certainly was an experience that left me wanting, but at least all this progress on the road leads, hopefully, to a more fulfilling time in Russia’s West.

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