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Baltics24: Day 14 – Vilnius
Our last full day in Vilnius, and indeed the Baltic states. Eastern Europe has apparently just one castle built on an island in a lake, and that’s in Lithuania at Trakai, about 20km out of Vilnius. Having travelled through Scotland several times, including just last year, I’ve seen my fair share of castles in lakes, it’s basically mandatory there to have a castle, or the ruins of one, wherever an island exists in a lake/loch. Mandatory, Bonnie Prince Charlie said so. Eastern Europe, not mandatory, maybe the folks at Trakai did it and then paid everyone else not to, so they’d be unique, or maybe in the Grand Duchy of…
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Baltics24: Day 10 – Riga
Our first full day in Riga and, well, it’s closed for Jani Day, their midsummer public holiday. It turns out that in these parts, the pagan cosplay also involves staying up until dawn, screaming at the dawn, then going to bed. So we missed out on the majority of the celebration, but I’m okay with that, it’s cool that we are here at the right time but the Latvians have been through enough in their lifetimes, they don’t need a few extra tourists bumbling through their traditions and celebrations. While I’m sure we’d have been welcomed, from all we’ve seen Latvians are a friendly, hospitable people, but being real, we’re…
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Baltics24: Day 4 – Helsinki
A full day in Helsinki. With the weather forecast promising sun, we took one of the harbour tour boats for a bit of fresh air and history. People have called Helsinki home for thousands of years, but it’s first major development kick was thanks to the Swedish occupiers in the 16th century. They turned Helsinki into a major trading hub, set up boat building, and probably imported meatballs, along with building some impressive forts among the islands that are scattered around the harbour. The forts didn’t really help when Sweden and Russia had a war in the early 19th century, which sent the Swedes packing (leaving their meatball recipe behind).…
