Day 6

Svetciems - Parnu: 110 km

The usual. Start easy and then gradually take it easier.  We crossed the Estonian border without special ceremonies, which is weird, since we at least expected a coffee. Everything was closed - end of the season apparently - in mid August?!. We stopped quite a few times and decided to camp somewhere around Parnu. Finally we settled under the bridge just outside the city. Yes and there was a beer story.

Day 5

Riga - Svetciems 90 km

OK, enough with the "city explorations". It was afternoon again before we headed north, into the wild. We took the major A1 road from Riga towards Estonia. It's following the Baltic coastline for over 100 km, and was expected to be a nice scenic road, but although you're just a few meters from the coast you hardly ever get to see the sea because of the trees. Who has the time for sea dipping anyway. This is the work of cyclist, just push, enjoy the scenery and stop every 20 km. That has become our strategy - we cycle by our own individual pace and meet every 20 km, or roughly every 45-60 minutes, for a short break. Everything is becoming automatic. Wake up, laugh for half an hour, eat breakfast, start cycling, pit stop for water, cycle all day with regular breaks, after 6 pm look for water and a place to spend the night. After 90 km, when the road touched the sea again and when the time was just after 6 pm we started looking for place to stay and buy some groceries. The place we stopped at looked nice for camping, but there was no shop for the next 10 or even 20 km, since it was Sunday. And, by the time we get there everything will be closed anyway. Thinking about our bad luck, we noticed a small camp ground and thought it would be nice if they had something to offer, but they (the old lady owning the camp site) a) didn't speak English, and b) it was off season already. We were just about to leave when out of the blue two Lithuanian girls arrived by car and were kind enough to give us a lift to the "near by" shop (20 km each way) to buy the stuff we needed. Of course the evening turned out to a nice dinner with a nice company. Thanks!

Day 4

Riga - Rest day 50 km

After yesterday's cycling and late night-early morning "city exploration", we naturally decided to take a rest day. Maybe explore the city by day and later take a dip in the Baltic sea. We left most of the gear (bags) in the tent and departed towards city centre. Riga summer festival just started. Main roads were closed and people were catching the sun listening to numerous concerts and walking up and down the promenade. There was a city adventure race going today - it would be nice if we could join, after the adventure races we attended in Slovenia, few months earlier. I think we are fitter now. 

Without a real plan we reached one of the beaches outside the city after 25 km. Nice! A rest day with 50 km trip around the city. Luckily without all the gear. Our lunch problem was solved by a large group of French scouts, who made too much ravioli. Must say that our meals are spanning from grotesque few euros out of the can food to few tens of euros in decent restaurants. On average, we are still sticking to the budget, which basically has not been set. Ideally we should be under 25 € pp/day. At the end of the day, everything under 50 € pp/day (including gas and tolls to Lithuania and bus/train return costs) will be considered success. Well it's another night, which means we're probably going out again. But the curfew hour is set to 3 am, since we plan to leave Riga first thing in the morning. 

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Day 3

Kupiškis - Riga: 165 km

After warming up a bit first two days we decided, that we could push it even a bit harder, and that it would be a good idea to reach Riga, the capital of Latvia, the same day. According to the map the distance should be around 160 km, but we managed to add 5 more km by cruising through towns on the way. The interesting fact about going north was that it was getting hotter and hotter. The weather improved, although we hadn't had any rainy cycling before. The scenery slowly changed from wast flat fields to wast flat forests. There were parts of the roads going straight for several kilometres. This boring straight lines enabled us to average some distances with over 30 km/h, which is pretty decent for 50 kg bicycle. 

After 165 km, probably my personal record, in a day we reached the Riga City Camping. Needless to say, we were exhausted. But that didn't stop us from going to check out the night life in town till the very next morning. From unknown reason we were in a mood to party. This could only mean one thing - next day is going to be a rest day.

    

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