Train touring Estonia: Valmiera to Narva

Posted on February 3, 2025 by Bryan Keith

From Valmiera to Narva we traveled largely by train. The only bicycling was two days from Tartu to Viljandi and a little bit in the cities of Valga, Tallinn, and Narva. It was a good call as we would have really been pushing the fall weather this far north (60°) by the end of our trip (beginning of October).

The train from Valmiera in Latvia actually crossed the border to Valga in Estonia, and we had a little time to look around Valga/Valka (Estonia/Latvia) before catching another train to Tartu. Interestingly here on the border with Latvia we saw a red brick Catholic church:

Valga Pühavaimu kirik by bryandkeith on flickr
Valga Pühavaimu kirik

A week later in Narva on the border with Russia it was a red brick Orthodox church:

Continue reading →
Posted in Bicycle touring, Estonia, Latvia, Traveling | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bicycle touring Latvia: Pilsrundāle to Valmiera

Posted on January 24, 2025 by Bryan Keith

Wow, Latvia was great — good riding, excellent sites, friendly people, nice forests. Rīga turned out to be one my favorite cities, and I also really enjoyed Rundāle Palace and Gauja National Park.

Crossing a border without any border posts always makes me happy. We crossed the border from Lithuania on a dirt road near the Sarkaņu kapi cemetery. The only post was this one:

IMG_20240829_151927 by bryandkeith on flickr

Our campsite near the school in Pilsrundāle had too many mosquitoes, and that, I think, was my biggest complaint in Latvia — mosquitoes, sometimes even during the day in the forests.

Continue reading →
Posted in Bicycle touring, Latvia | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Bicycle touring Lithuania: Vilnius to Kriukai (Joniškis)

Posted on January 14, 2025 by Bryan Keith

Bicycle touring in Lithuania was fine. There was some nice scenery, a few kind of interesting sites; we swam in some reservoirs. But it was hardly spectacular or amazing. Perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising. I never heard anyone say, “wow, you really must visit Lithuania.” From my notes I am reminded that we had a fair bit of wind and too many mosquitoes at some of our camps.

Trakai is known for its castle on an island in a lake. It was crowded with tourists enjoying the hot weather on a Sunday afternoon. It’s only about 40km west of Vilnius, but the recommended bicycle route was on a busy narrow road.

IMG_20240818_154729 by bryandkeith on flickr
Continue reading →
Posted in Bicycle touring, Lithuania | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Bicycle touring the Baltics: The Upper Daugava to Vilnius

Posted on January 4, 2025 by Bryan Keith

It wasn’t surprising that there weren’t so many bicycle tourists in Belarus. But then we crossed into Schengen, into the EU, into Latvia’s Upper Daugava River valley, a UNESCO World Heritage Site with a marked bicycle route all the way to Daugavpils. It will be crowded with tourists, I’m sure.

20240807_172033 by bryandkeith on flickr
Continue reading →
Posted in Bicycle touring, Latvia, Lithuania | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Bicycle touring Belarus: Minsk airport to Maladzyechna, Polatsk to Grigorovshchina

Posted on December 25, 2024 by Bryan Keith

Years ago (like 30?!) I was on a Tashkent-Moscow Aeroflot flight that landed on a clear winter day in Minsk. All I could see was endless forest — “what’s it like down there?” I wondered. That day we spent about five hours at the Minsk airport until the weather improved in Moscow and we could continue to our planned destination.

This year Ebru, Ferda, and I bought tickets on the daily charter operated by Belavia from Antalya to Minsk. As summer started, we watched the weather with increasing trepidation. Throughout July Belarus and Poland were getting continuous heavy rain, and flood warnings were issued with almost every weather forecast. We arrived around midday on July 30th to partly cloudy skies.

20240730_120457 by bryandkeith on flickr

As usual it took too long to go from boxes and bags of equipment to looking like bicycle tourists.

Continue reading →
Posted in Belarus, Bicycle touring | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments