2010 Trip to Eastern Europe and the Baltics

Journal Pages
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Getting There

Budapest

Krakow

Warsaw

Lithuania & Latvia

Estonia

Latvia & Lithuania

Gdansk

 Getting Home

Lithuania and Latvia Northbound

July 29

We took TTS to the airport for his flight back to Houston, then headed north to Lithuania. The one interesting thing was a road that was fairly heavily traveled – and there were young women waiting for the bus – but no bus stop. Occasionally a car would stop and the driver and the girl would negotiate. Sad.

Poland is very Catholic, which makes the prostitution especially poignant – I suspect the girls don’t have much choice – either economically or because they are in the hands of a merciless pimp. The countryside is dotted with beautiful shrines and Pope John Paul is a genuine hero in the country. ”Santo Subito” are on yellow banners displayed from the churches, yellow being the color of the Pope.

Generally the roads were good and the border crossing was a non-event – we weren’t stopped for a passport check and no policemen tried to stiff us.

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are surprising – they are so empty. The farmlands stretch on for miles, there are some villages here and there, but the traffic is very light.

We stopped for the night in Kaunas at the Best Western Santakos Hotel. We had arrived early enough that we went for a walk into the town hall square. The town hall is quite grand.

    The town hall

        This church was rather plain on the outside but grand on the inside

    While this one was grand on the outside

        The old town is quite charming

We decided to eat in the hotel – it was actually fairly decent. The next day, on the way out of Kaunas, we passed places you would not want to live.

    Soviet era housing?

July 30

We continued north – now into Latvia. Once again, large stretches of farmland with very little by way of settlements. We went past a very large water reservoir – I wondered how safe the water was.

We stopped outside of Riga at the Hotel Baltvilla. It is sort of a ‘spa’ on a lake, but wasn’t very large. We did manage a bit of a walk before having dinner on the outdoor deck.