Marriage in Tallinn and separation in Riga. Terje MelheimIn July 2008 one of our colleagues was getting married in Tallinn. Turid and I and a couple of other colleagues were happy to be invited to his wedding on the other side of the Baltic Sea. Of course we wanted to combine the visit in Tallinn with a cycle tour in a country where we had never been before. The best way of getting there would be by Air Baltic, an airline that is rather cheap, but unfortunately for us they charge quite a lot for bicycles. May be we should go on a cycle tour this year without our bicycles, and we could hire bicycles at our destination. I did not like that idea because I would like to cycle on after our holidays, for this was my first year as a pensioner, and I could enjoy the freedom by bicycle through Europe to Vienna for a long time without bothering to come back home at a fixed day. Therefore we had this idea for a cycle tour: We go to Tallinn, hire bicycles and cycle to Riga. From Riga I will cycle on to Vienna whereas Turid will fly home. With this plan I should take my own bicycle along, whereas Turid should travel light without a bicycle as part of her luggage. If I left home some days earlier than Turid, I could travel by rail and sea to Estonia and Tallinn. Before the journey I dismantled the bicycle completely and wrapped it up in tarpaulin. On the internet we discovered City Bike in Tallinn where we could hire a bicycle for Turid, and this shop also offered a cycle tour from Tallinn to Riga with hotel accommodations. The tour ended in Riga, where we could leave the bicycle that Turid had hired. Unfortunately, before we could start this tour I got severe pains in my foot, and I would not be able to cycle on from Riga. The pains ceased, and I decided to go alone by bicycle from Riga but this time only back to Tallinn. I had rejected my ambitious plans for Vienna. We had then already booked our tour and bought the air tickets for Turid. When I left home some days earlier than Turid, I had to carry my entire luggage which included a dismantled bicycle, to the train station in Bergen and from one train to another in Oslo. It turned out that the train to Stockholm had partly been cancelled and I together with my vast luggage was transported in a mini-bus to Sweden. In Stockholm I met a friend who worked at the airport expresss. He helped me with my luggage and he showed me the right bus from the station to the harbour. As soon I had arrived in Tallinn, I put my bicycle together, so that I did not have to carry the luggage to the hotel. The man who was to get married, had reserved rooms for all his guests from Norway in hotel l'Ermitage. Turid arrived in the evening, and in the hotel I met many friends from home. The wedding ceremony took place in Janni Kirik. Maret and Per-Gunnar walked very solemnly up the aisle of the church. After the ceremony the couple and their guests gathered in front of the church. For the reception after the wedding we walked through the old town to an historical house called Mustapeade maja. In the old house full of traditions we all enjoyed the nice feast We got aquainted with many Estonians, and that was a nice way of learning about Estonia and its people.
Next day the newly married couple invited all Norwegian guest on a sightseeing tour through Tallinn, both the new parts and of course the old town.
City Bike does a lot to promote cycle tours in Estonia. They hire out bicycles and they organize tours, both short ones in the vicinity of Tallinn and longer ones, like the one we had booked to Riga. City Bike also offers cheap accommodation to cyclists in Tallinn. I like this kind of enthusiasm for cycling, and it is impressive what the manager Toomas Lelov has got out of his business with bicycles. Then came the day when Turid and I were to start our cycle tour. I had already been in contact with City Bike, so that we could get Turid's bicycle, the description of our cycle route and the vouchers for the stays at the hotels in the evening before our departure. Unfortunately the vouchers were not ready, as we had agreed upon. All right, they were ready for the next morning, and we could start a bit later than we had hoped for. When the owner of City Bike, Toomas Lelov, handed me the papers, I got a shock, because he told me that the ship from Estonia to Latvia leaves the harbour at 10 o'clock in the morning, but to the harbour there would be 46 km of cycling from the hotel where Toomas had booked us in. With our usual speed we would never make it unless we left the hotel at 5 o'clock in the morning. Who would like to rise at such an hour and skip the breakfast, which we had paid for? When I told it to Turid, she said, let us go, and we should not spoil the cycle tour by thinking of it. Hopefully there is a solution to this problem.
On our way towards HaapsaluFrom City Bike we had got a bicycle map of Estonia. Special cycle routes were shown on that map, and along the roads the cycle routes had been signposted. Mostly they went on ordinary main roads, and normally in Estonia those roads were the only roads with asphalt surface, but the traffic was not too bad. Another map from City Bike was a cycle map of Tallinn. We used that map to get out of town. We followed cycle route number one towards the west, and as soon we had left the densely built up area, we saw to our favourable surprise a nice cycle way, separated from the traffic on the main road. Still we managed to lose that cycle way, and we ended up at a cul de sac near the coast. According to the map we had to cross just a small river, and there would be a road on the other side. But how could we reach that road? Fortunately a woman came walking by, but she did not speak any English. I remembered from other cycle tours that bridge is "silta" in Finnish - and she understood us. There is a great deal of similarity between Estonian and Finnish language, they both belong to the Finno-Ugrian languages. She walked with us, showed us the little bridge, and on the other side was a large fence. She pointed at a track outside the fence where we could push our bicycles along. On the other side of the fence was a nice asphalt road. "Shit," I said, "I am not going to take this", and as soon as we saw a gate we went in behind the fence. We could then cycle on the good road - until the road was blocked by another gate. It was operated electronically, and we saw no one we could ask to open it. We had to cycle back, go out through the minor gate, where we had got in, and push our bicycles along on the track, and this time we ended up outside the electronic gate. What kind of area was this? We realised we had entered a domestic area for rich people who had built their new houses in the suburb, away from ordinary people and they had even protected themselves from ordinary people by fencing themselves in and ordinary people out. "Look at those houses", said Turid. Those who live here are probably all "Nouveaux riches".
We reached the cycle route number 1 again and followed the excellent cycle way which had been well equipped with signs indicating road for cyclists. However, at all intersections, even at small roads that only led to single houses, there was a sign showing that the cycle way had been suspended. We were wondering how traffic rules should be interpreted in such cases. Probably it gives all priority to the motor traffic at those intersections. I have seen similar discriminating signs in Austria, and that is probably there or in Spain that Estonia has learnt its negative practice against cyclists.
The cycle way came to an end, and we had to follow cycle route number 1 on ordinary roads. The road we were following was about to get new asphalt surface, and for many miles we had to cycle on loose gravel. As we followed the route description from City Bike, we left cycle route no. 1 at Keila-Joa. To our relief we landed on minor roads with asphalt surface. The destination for the first day was Padise. From the description of City Bike the little hotel should be situated near Kloostri river. Of course, we continued on the main road until we crossed that river. At that point a young man had just left a mini-bus, and we asked him for the way to Kallaste tourist farm. He spoke only Russian, but, he said, in five minutes some one would come who spoke English, and he would know. We stood there waiting all three of us. It was very friendly of the young man to take his time and be waiting with us. Unfortunately I did not know enough Russian to keep a conversation going. Three silent people along a desolate road in the open landscape remembered me of a film by Alfred Hitchcock I had seen years ago. The waiting was interrupted by another young man who came cycling along. He spoke English and he knew where we should go. We had to go back, take a sand road through the forest, and this road would eventually lead to the river. The little group of people dissolved. The Russian picked up his plastic bag and continued down a side road, the English speaking Estonian cycled on and we cycled back where we had come from. At Kallaste tourist farm there was much noise from a very gay party. Loud music and alcohol had created a good mood among the other guests. And the guests were the employees of a hotel in Tallinn. Believe it or not, it was the staff of l'Ermitage hotel where we had been staying during our time in Tallinn. Turid and I sat there looking at them. "Look, there is the woman in the reception, and there is the girl who served us breakfast this morning." We were a bit afraid of much noise during the night, but we had no reason to worry. The staff of l'Ermitage left early by their bus back to Tallinn. At the tourist farm we met a nice couple from Sweden. They were of our age. It was very nice talking to Ann and Per-Arne. They were also on a cycle tour and had been cycling along the coast. They had visited many settlements where people of Swedish origin had lived before the war. Our conversation was much about what it was like to grow up in the years from 1950 till 1970 in Norway and Sweden. Even if there are many similarities, there are also differences. It gave us the opportunity to compare conditions in the two neighbouring countries.
Kallaste tourist farm was a nice place to stay with friendly people, and we had a good breakfast the next morning. Before we left Padise we visited the ruins of the big monastery. The buildings had not only served as a monastery but had also been a military stronghold for those who tried to conquer Estonia whether it was Germans, Swedes or Russians. Our cycle route from Padise towards Haapsalu did not follow the coast; it went straight on through forests and bogs. I am glad City Bike had chosen that road because it had asphalt surface and it was shorter than the cycle route no. 1 along the coast. I must admit the landscape was a bit dull and Turid complained that the road was so flat that there were no down hills. Haapsalu is a nice town with many small wooden houses. They are painted in many colours. Worth seeing are also the ruins of the archbishop's castle. It was an important stronghold, and it once served Swedish interests. When the Russians had taken over the Baltic area, the Russian aristocracy and the tsars used to go to the beaches at Haapsalu, and to Haapsalu they went by train. The old railway station can boast of having the longest covered platform in the Baltic.
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| Prehistoric burial mould on Hiiumaa |
The symmetrical Suuremõsa castle |
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| Road signs for Estonian cycle route no. 1 |
Windmills on Hiiumaa |
Next day would not be so nice. We were to cycle to Kuressaare, the largest town on the next island. If we included the attraction Sääretirp, we would have to cycle 100 km on that day. Besides, in our minds was always our 46 km long cycle tour that we would have to complete before 10 o'clock in the morning in order to reach the ship to Latvia. At the guesthouse in Kärdla I found a timetable for the ship to Latvia. It turned out that one day later the ship would leave at 18.00. I phoned Toomas Lelov of City Bike and told him what I thought about his itinerary. If we could leave Kuressaare the morning after his itinerary, we would have no problem in reaching the ship on time. I told him to delay our tour by one day, so that we could use two days to reach Kuuressaare and be able to reach the ship at a more reasonable time the following day. We had ordered this cycle tour in March, and Toomas Lelov would have had plenty of time to make out a good schedule for us. On the phone he said he would see what he could do, and he would phone me back.
In the morning we cycled to the south, passed some characteristic windmills. We could have reached the 12 o'clock ferry to the next island (Saaremaa), but we wanted to make a detour to include Sääretirp in our itinerary. The road out to Sääretirp goes through a beautiful landscape with plenty of different birds. Sääretirp is probably an esker that slowly dips into the sea. We could walk on this deposit of sand from the ice ages and feel how it slowly vanished into the water. I had experienced something similar earlier when I was walking on a road that slowly disappeared into the water of a hydroelectric power dam.
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| Sääretirp |
When we were cycling towards the ferry at Sõru port, my cell phone rang. Toomas Lelov could tell me that he was not able to change our stays at the hotels. What he had done, was to offer us a ride in a car from the port of Triigi on Saaremaa, where the ferry from Sõru on Hiiumaa would bring us. In Triigi we could hang our bicycles onto a car. The driver was a relative of Toomas Lelov, and he had some cooperation with City Bike, as he used to transport the luggage of the cyclists on guided cycle tours. Still I did not like the whole idea of sitting in a motor vehicle. We had bought a cycle tour. We did not do one single kilometre, and not even one single turn of our pedals on the island of Saaremaa. He dropped us at our hotel, and we had made a appointment for the next morning that he would collect us and our bicycles at the hotel and transport us to the ship. That was very nice of him, but of course we had to pay him for his service. At least he solved our problem that City Bike and Toomas Lelov had inflicted upon us.
On our way in the car towards Mõntu, from where the ship sails to Ventspils in Latvia, something dramatically happened. At high speed the driver hit a deer that ran across the road. The car was badly damaged in the front, and some blue liquid leaked out from the car. The deer vanished in the wood, but blood stains bore evidence that the animal was not likely to survive. Fortunately the driver was able to continue towards the harbour, and we reached the ship with good margins. The driver of the car, Toomas Lelovs relative, left the harbour immediately with his damaged car. He did not look so happy. We felt sorry for him. On the other hand, this accident would never have happened if City Bike had made up an itinerary on manageable conditions.
| May be you would like to have another look
at the map of our cycle route |
From Ventspils to Riga.
We had a lovely voyage to
Ventspils in Latvia. We sailed up the river to the landing place of
the ship. On one side was the busy export harbour and on the other side
the historical centre. We arrived not just in a new town, but also in a
new country with its own currency. Even the language is totally
different from Estonian. Latvian language belongs to the Indo-European
group of languages, but the language is still very difficult to
understand. Some words look similar to words in other languages. I must
admit I did not bother to learn the most widely used phrases in
Latvian. I did not learn how to say good morning and thank you. In
Latvia the impact of Russian is greater than in Estonia. I thought
knowledge of Russian would be sufficient, and on that point I was right.First we cycled to the hotel where City Bike had booked us in. The architecture was distinctive soviet style. Of course the lift was not operating, but instead of a sign with PEMOHT, it had been modernized with a piece of paper with the text "Out of order". Among the historical places we wanted to visist, the Livonian castle had the priority. The castle had been built by German knights who found it more easy to convert the peoples along the shores of the Baltic sea to christianity instead of going to the holy land and do the same there, besides crusades among the Baltic peoples were definately more profitable. After the Baltic cusaders followed German Tradesmen who extracted even more wealth from the Baltic areas. The Germans founded their Livonian order, and in Ventspils stands one of their castles, which has recently been renovated.
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| The
Castle of the Livonian order in Ventspils |
Our trouble with City Bike was still not over, for from Ventspils we had to cycle 111 km to reach our next accommodation where we had been booked in. City Bike had not handed us any road map of Latvia. We had only got some brochures of some places along our way. Fortunately I had already a road map of Latvia, and this map even showed the quality of the roads. We knew that of the 111 km we had to cycle there would be a substantial distance on gravel roads along the northern coast. When we left Ventspils I could use my knowledge of Russian to ask the way. I then felt much gratitude towards the hairdresser from Yalta whose evening courses in Russian language I had attended to 18 years ago. We soon encountered two other cyclists whose Ortlieb pannier bags clearly revealed German origin. May be they were from former Eastern Germany and happy to be able to use the knowledge of Russian they had from school. They greeted us in Russian. I was eager to know what the gravel section of the road ahead was like. They said they had partly cycled on the beach, but at one place they had to cross a river where the water had reached them to their chests. We decided not to try the adventure along the beach, we would stay on the road no matter how bad it was.
After 40 kilometres we noticed heavy smoke ahead and constantly new clouds of smoke erupted. It looked like explosions. We realised what it was. We had come to the road without asphalt on it. Every car caused a large cloud of dust. When we got there, we saw it was a road of the poorest quality. The cars that drove past, did not just cause dust but they also loosened all the gravel stones, and it was extremely difficult to keep the balance. I shouted to Turid, "Use a low gear and let us get through with it" I cycled on, and after a while I turned around to see how Turid was doing. I could not see her at all. I had to cycle back, and there she came walking, pushing her bike. I told her to get on her bike and do careful cycling. If we should be walking all the distance with gravel, we would never reach our destination on one day. "I had hoped this bad road would soon come to an end", she said. "No, it doesn't", I said, but I did not mention that it would last for the next 50 kilometres. I promised her, that as soon I found an alternative road , we would take that, and such a road turned up after 20 kilometres. On the new road we had to cycle for some few kilometres on a gravel road, but that was a decent gravel road with little traffic, where the gravel was stable. This was that kind of gravel roads we knew from the 60s in Norway when practically all roads there were gravel roads.
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| Turid on the notorious gravel road along
the coast to the east of Ventspils. |
We soon reached an ordinary main road with asphalt on it. And there, close to the road we found a shop where we could buy drinks to clear our throats from all the dust we had been swallowing during our suffering on the via dolorosa. From my map I could calculate how far we still had to cycle on that day. Turid got two options. Either we cycle on for 36 kilometres, but that will include some more gravel roads. Or we can stay on main roads, cycle via the town of Valdemarpils, and finally reach our destination after 55 kilometres. Turid chose the longer distance without any more gravel. In the flat landscape it was easy cycling, but between Valdemarpils and Roja, where our hotel was, the traffic was terrible. The cars passed us at very high speed. Many of the cars were of the brand BMW. I believe many young men had been working abroad in the west, and on their return home, they bought swift cars in order to impress. Late in the evening, when we reached Roja on the coast, we had cycled for altogether 120 kilometres that day.
We had now been through the hard distances that City Bike hat inflicted upon us. Next day was easy going along the shore for 50 km. When we arrived at the hotel in Engure, and we presented the voucher from City Bike, we heard to our surprice, that the hotel had received no money from City Bike, and not even a reservation for us had been made. The lady at the hotel in Engure was very friendly. She phoned City Bike in Tallinn and got it sorted out. Again we got disappointed with the job that City Bike had done. From Engure we cycled to Jurmela, a spa town on the coast. Jurmela is very popular, and people go there to the beach in order to look at other people and to be seen. In Jurmala itself and along the shores many impressive villas have been built in wooden material. Most of them are old structures, but some are new ones, and as the sign in front of such a luxerious house was in Russian, it was pobably meant for rich Russians.
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| Interesting architectural creativity
................. |
............among the wooden houses
of Jurmela. |
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| A nice cycle way from Jurmala towards Riga. |
From Jurmela we could cycle towards Riga on a cycle way along the railway line, far away from the car traffic. The cycle way took us into the suburbs of Riga, and from there we would have to find our way on streets with much traffic and bad surface. We could use the pavements. In order to find our hotel we had to cycle through the old town along impressive old churches and the town hall. This area was closed to car traffic. It was nice to get an introduction to Rigas attractions this way. When we reached the hotel, City Bike had done a decent job by making a reservation for us. We asked at the reception if they had been in contact with City Bike, so that they could receive the bicycle Turid had been cycling on from Tallinn. No one knew about City Bike although Toomas Lelov had said before we left Tallinn that the people at the hotel in Riga would be informed. The next morning we left the bicycle at the hotel and sent a SMS to Toomas Lelov. Since then we have heard nothing from City Bike, so I believe it is OK with the bicycle.
City Bike had booked us in for one night at the hotel. For the subsequent nights we managed to find a good hotel in the suburbs. To reach it included a nice tram ride by line no. 10, and we used this tram line in order to go to the city centre of Riga. We saw the façadeof the old/new city hall, where the German inscription was an evidence of a strong German influence in Latvia up till the end of World War II. The German inscription showed a very special construction of the German language. I am uncertain whether it is correct to call the city hall old or new. Fact is that the original city hall was completely destroyed during the war. In 2001, after the Soviet era, a replica was constructed in its place.
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| The cityhall with traditions going
back to Hanseatic times. |
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| The house of the Blackheads
(Schwarzhäupter) to the left. Right is the "old" city hall. |
Next to the city hall of Riga, stands the house of the Blackheads. This house also dates back to Hanseatic times, but suffered a lot during the war. The present house is, just like the city hall, a replica built after the Soviet period. The Blackheads (Schwarzhäupter in German-Hanseatic language) was an organisation for apprentices. "Don't you remember" said Turid "that the house in Tallinn where we celebrated the marriage of Maret and Per-Gunnar had the name of Blackheads? I can even remember the name in Estonian: Mustapeade maja, and that means exactly Blackheads house." Turid had made a good observation there. Tallinn, just as Riga, was a hanseatic town, and the apprentices among the trading people in Tallinn were organised the same way as the apprentices in Riga
Then we visited the part of the town where not just one house, not just a quarter but a whole part of the town consisted of beautifully decorated houses in the style of Art Nouveau. It was Turid who was well infored about this outstanding architectural phenomenon. I am probably not doing justice to Riga when I don't mention more attractions of that city, but now comes the continuation of the cycle tour and the day of our separation.
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| Decorations on the houses in the Art
Nouveau quarter. |
This photo by Gerald Hummel |
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| Beautiful
façades in the Art
Nouveau quarter |
| May be you would like to have another look
at the map of our cycle route |
Alone back to Tallinn.
Turid had ordered a taxi to pick
her up from the hotel at 9 o'clock and drive her to the airport. Just
before 9 we tried to pay our bill at the hotel, but the terminal for
the credit card was not working. Suddenly the taxi was there, and Turid
left right away. It was indeed a quick separation. I was left there at
the reception with a problem. How to pay the bill? The woman at the
reception had this idea. She asked me to go to the nearest bankautomat
and
withdraw the money in cash. So I did, and then I could pay and
everything was all right. The next problem was to cycle through the city of Riga, find the right way on the other side and manoeuvre through the traffic. I was heading for Sigulda, a tourist town northeast of Latvia. I had read stories on the internet that the road to Sigulda was a road with four lanes and heavy and fast traffic. I preferred another way. On my map I found alternative roads going a bit farther to the south. Still I had to use main roads where there was asphalt, but the traffic was less dense. When I reached Sigulda after having zigzagged my way, I saw I had cycled 75 kilometres instead of 50. What makes Sigulda so attractive, is the river Gauja that has eroded deep into the landscape. The river is very popular among rafters and canoeists. Down to the river and up the other side the road was as steep as 10 %. After two weeks of cycling in the flat scenery of Baltic I could again feel what it was like to negotiate a steep road. On the top of the opposite side of the river lies the castle Turaida. The name was a bit similar to the name of my wife, who SMSed me and told she had arrived home safely. That night I slept well, independent from any hotel. I pitched my tent that I had been carrying for the whole cycle tour. I found the camping place down in the steep valley next to the river.
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| The castle of Turaida and the river Gauja
in the background. |
On my way to Sigulda I had managed to find alternative roads with hard surface. From Sigulda and eastwards there was no other way, I had to take the main road with its heavy traffic. From Riga the road had had four lanes, but from Sigulda and eastwards there were just two lanes. Still the traffic was fast and heavy. This is the main road between Riga and St. Petersburg with the number E7. I was glad when I could branch off towards Cesis, and from there on parallel minor roads with asphalt to Smiltene. According to my information I could cycle on for 30 kilometres for a camping place. So I did, and after 120 kilometres on that day I came to the camping place, but to my disappointment, and desperation it was closed because of a sport arrangement. The next camping would be 60 kilometres further on. I refused to cycle on, and I was allowed to pitch my tent on the field on the other side of the road, outside the area of the camping place.
I did not sleep well just outside this sporting camping. For a long time during the night old pop music from the 60s and 70s was broadcasted very loudly. They probably wanted to catch up with the music that they had not been able to listen to during the reign of the Soviet Union.
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| Camping outside the noisy camping place on
my way to Gulbene. |
Next day I reached the little town of Gulbene. In the outskirts of the town signs pointed to the railway station because at Gulbene they have introduced a railway for tourists. It is a narrow gauge heritage line that runs between Gulbene and Aluksne. It is the last narrow gauge railway line in Baltic. The railway has got its own home page. At Gulbene I was greeted by a majestic station building and a vast railway yard with many tracks, all except one on the Russian broad gauge. The station seemed deserted because the only track that saw some trains, was the single narrow gauge track next to the huge and impressive station building. From this track a narrow gauge train departed three times a day. Unfortunately the train was not hauled by a steam engine, rather an ordinary diesel engine that pulled just one single carriage. I would like to make a train ride on this railway, and I could put my bicycle on the rear platform. The room of this built-in platform was so limited that with my bicycle there, I could not close the door. I tied my bicycle with my luggage straps to prevent it from rolling out while the train was rattling along on its uneven track to Aluksne.
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| Not the inside of a castle but Gulbene
railway station. |
The impressive railway station at Gulbene
with the narrow gauge train. |
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| A
railway journey on the narrow gauge. |
I took this photo while the train was
already moving. |
The journey did not resemble a train ride for tourists. Most of the passengers were locals. The railway line went through a landscape with no or only bad sandy roads. People had to use the train as a connection to their rural homes. It was a pleasure to travel on a typical Eastern European narrow gauge train through a green scenery of forests and fields. Sometimes there were some houses where the train stopped. At one such station I got off because I wanted a photo of the train in this virgin landscape. However the train started quite quickly. I did not get any good photo and I had to jump on the train while it was already moving. The tourist railway has many photos from along the line. The photos have been taken from a plane. Here is a direct link to the page with the photos of the railway line and the scenery through which it runs.
The narrow gauge had been much longer before, but now Aluksne is the terminus. Not far from this town I found a nice camping place near a lake. I slept well, and in the morning I continued my cycle tour. I was now heading northwest. I came to the large road between Riga and St. Petersburg. I feared the heavy traffic that I had met on this road two days ago. There was no reason for fear. On the broad road there were practically no motor vehicles. Well, I had advanced far to the east, and I was only 40 kilometres from the border to Russia. That was however not the border I crossed on that day. I was now 40 kilometres from Russia but only 5 kilometres from the Estonian border. There was no passport or custom control on that border. Both countries are within EU and the Schengen cooperation. I preferred to cycle in Estonia because that would allow me to cycle on an asphalt road all the way the Valka. Valka, or Valga as it is written in Latvian, lies directly on the border between the two countries. At the tourist office on the Estonian side I said I would like to sleep in Latvia because I still had so much Latvian money left. No problem, they told me exactly where to go to find a guesthouse on the Latvian side. It is amazing that a town is divided between two countries where the languages are so different. At the guesthouse in Valga I asked where I could go to have dinner. They mentioned one place, but added: The best food and best restaurants you will find in Estonia. The town seems to function like one town although it is split between two countries. I went to the nearest place to have dinner, in Latvia. Soon a couple on their bicycles turned up. They were from the Netherlands and had just crossed the border on their cycle tour from the north to the south in Baltic.
In the morning it started to rain heavily, and after breakfast I dressed up in my rain gear. I crossed back to Valka and Estonia and stayed on the main road towards the north-west. It was still raining as I was cycling along, bent over my handlebar and counting the kilometres. Near Valka the road was practically on the border. The left hand side of the road marked the border between Estonia and Latvia. My next goal was Haapsalu. I needed three days from Valka to the town that Turid and I had visited before. On my way I passed a little house along the road. This house was indeed special because it was thatched with traditional wooden tiles. Up till now, all houses I had observed on my cycle tour through the Baltic were covered with asbestos. Even traditional and old houses were thatched with this material from the Soviet period.
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| At
last I saw a house thatched with traditional.... |
.........wooden
tiles and not with asbestos. |
Another tradition from rural Baltic scenery I could see on my way. On some phone poles storks had built their nests. The birds were shy and observant. If I stopped and tried to get a close picture, they would fly away. On the last picture you should notice the additional pole that has been erected with a special platform on it. An effort has probably been made to make the storks build their nest on this platform so that the activity of the birds will not cause any problems because of the electric wires.
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| Storks nesting on a telephone pole. |
An alternative pole has been erected.
Hopefully the storks will move their nest to the new fundament. |
When I got to Haapsalu more rain was expected, so I went to a hotel, and from there to the attraction I had missed when I visited Haapsalu with Turid. This interesting attraction was the museum of the Swedish population that had lived on the islands and along the coast of Estonia before the war. The Swedish settlements go back to 900 a. D. In 1944 the whole Swedish population, of 8000 people, left Estonia where their ancestors had lived in Swedish settlements for a thousand years. Next day I cycled towards Padise again, but instead of taking the road where Turid and I had cycled, I took the road along the coast, although I knew I would meet some stretches of bad road there. I even met quite many other touring cyclists on this road. After all it was cycle route no 1 of Estonia I was cycling on. Along this road I passed many previous Swedish settlements. Some settlements were mere historical. A brown sign had been put up to show tourists that here is a place of interest. There were no signs of houses. I was not even able to discover the old fundaments of the houses that had once been there. The traces of settlement were probably all hidden among the trees and bushes. The names of these settlements were given in both Estonian and Swedish. The Estonian name was frequently a mere adoption from Swedish. In the settlement of Tuksi there were even now houses, and the names were given both in Estonian and Swedish, and those names were totally different. Just before Tuksi/Gammalby I passed a chapel. On the graveyard all names and inscriptions were in Swedish. One grave had even been decorated with fresh flowers. All graves were from before 1944 when the Swedish population left their homes on the Estonian coast.
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| No houses to be seen where the Swedish
population lived before the war. |
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| The name of the settlement is given both in Estonian and Swedish. |
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| A churchyard. All names and all inscriptions are in Swedish. |
Cycle route number one led me back to Padise. This time I had no problems in finding Kallaste tourist farm. The host remembered me from last time and was surprised that I was alone. She asked where my wife was. I told her that after our separation in Riga Turid flew back home, whereas I wanted to see more of the Baltic area. On my last day in Baltic I had an easy cycle distance towards Tallinn. I soon arrived on the nice cycle way that brought me right back to the centre of Tallinn. I remembered to stop at L'Ermitage hotel where I had stored the tarpaulins and the other equipment that I needed for wrapping up my bicycle and make it ready and handy for the train journey back home. To the harbour I walked through the old town. This time I was alone. No one from the matrimonial party of Maret and Per-Gunnar was there. Even the newly wed couple had left for their honeymoon to Paris. In Tallinn live quite many Russians, and it seems to be a Russian tradition that when people get married the couple will appear in public together with a photographer. Around the Russian orthodox and impressive cathedral of Alexander Nevsky some couples dressed for marriage turned up. One couple passed the bench where I was having my meal. I called out “congratulations!”, but there was no reaction. Then I said in Russian: “Ja pazdravlyayu!” “Spasiba”, said the bride with a smile.
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| The Russian orthodox cathedral of
Alexander Nevsky. |
For the voyage from Tallinn to Stockholm I did not dismantle my bicycle, because from Stockholm I wanted to cycle on towards the west for some days. At the station Hallsberg I took the bicycle apart and wrapped it in tarpaulin before I entered the train for Oslo. In trains in Sweden no bicycles are allowed, but it is all right if the bicycle is dismantled and wrapped up. In the train I could easily store the two packages (The frame in one and the wheels, mudguards and luggage carriers in one) behind the seats. The main problem is to carry the dismantled bicycle between the trains, and another disadvantage is the long time it takes to dismantle it or put it together. For one such operation I need at least one hour. Late in the evening when the train Oslo-Bergen arrived at the station of Bergen, Turid was there to meet me. We greeted each other cordially. We had been separated for two weeks since we left one another in Riga.
| May be you would like to have another look
at the map of our cycle route |
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