Hotel Jaunmoku Tume

... charge a ridiculous amount of money, and if they dont pay, the Latvian men will beat the person up. I was thinking... hmmm.... I wonder if this goes both ways!??? Anyway, turns out he was just a little drunk. lol I met all his friends and he was quite attractive and nice, but wayyyyyy too forward and I got wayyyyyyy uncomfortable! To be honest, I would have loved a fun night of nice company and conversation. But if Ive learned anything, its if you ...

... backpacker (Nic) and several members of Ediite's extended family.

They were heating up the sauna and collecting birch twigs and mint sprigs. Ediite tied them together in to bundles and left them soaking in a big bucket inside the sauna. As a family, we got to have first go in the sauna. It was the kids first real sauna, not counting the time they'd been thrown out of the one in Kidderminster's Glades leisure centre for being ...

... of them are within an hour or so of Riga. Plienciems is no exception. We took a circuitous route to get there - getting lost in Tukums and Rauda before finally locating the right house in the early evening.

Ingrida's beach house is actually several pine houses a couple of hundred metres from the beach. Each time they needed any improvements doing, it seems they built a completely new, upgraded house. We stayed in the second house, which had a bathroom, sauna, large dormitory in ...

... and hop on board. Once on board I do a check of my guide. Oops. Not it. I hop off before the train leaves, luckily. I settle for the real train in 40 minutes.

The beach is really quiet. It is set of good sized crowds. More like Brazil than the other resorts I have visited along the Baltic, restaurants and bars line the beach. Only problem is that they are almost empty. Not sure if it is the weather (overcast yet still warm), day (Wednesday), time of year ...

... coffee. Certainly a very pleasant way to watch the world go by. We spoke of my ancestors and wondered what the beach and facilities where like when they were visiting these same stretches of beach. When we got back to Riga train station we had our usual obligatory visit to a local supermarket to buy some local tastes and just see what people buy, it's always an interesting wander that we take around foreign ...

C'est parti, on se raproche un peu de la nature ! Ca fait du bien apres les gazs de pot d'echappement du stop et l'air pollue des villes. On se prend donc un train avec Olivia jusqu'a la 'ville des saunas' de Lettonie et on se rend vite compte qu'il y a uniquement des saunas, des vieux et des familles. On esperait un peu plus mais c'est ...

... lover there, and was killed by a Polish prince who wanted to marry her. It is apparently lucky for wedding couples to visit here, and we saw half a dozen along the road. One wedding party was in the car park having a picnic. Rosa was transfixed by the story of the Princess, and she wanted to know where the Princess was now, since I had backtracked in my story and said that no, she hadn't actually been stabbed to death by a Polish prince (Jo didn't want Rosa to have ...

... A thoroughly petrifying experience. They have no hard shoulders here, and some of the worst driving I have encountered in europe. Worst of all, they didn't seem to feel it at all necessary to move over in the slightest to pass us, even if they had two clear lanes to the other side. At least the police didn't seem to mind us cycling along there, though we couldn't persuade them to register our speed with the speed cameras they were carrying. Shame.

On the recommendation of the lady in the tourist info place, I made a stop in Sabile. A small town in the Abava valley, it is listed in the Guinness book of records for having the northernmost vineyard in the world. Unfortunately it was closed when I was there and although quite pretty, there's nothing else to see in town. Tourist info, what do they know??!

... wieder schreiben können. Aber das kann warten... XXXXX After my first ride on a track preparationstop in Jurmaia for cleaning and checking the motorcycle. I joined the whole evening to conversations with german campground guests. So there was no time to continue my paperwork. It can wait...