ABOUT
THIS TRAVEL
August 98, 30 days
INTRO
ABOUT BALTIC REP.
Kind of travel:
me and a sweet girl in a wholly independent travel
When: 1998
summer
How I moved: by
train, by bus, and by taxi
Where I slept: on
the bus and in cheap hostel/hotels
Baking or freezing?: perfect climate to spend the summer (+10 +25)
Dangers: no problems!
What I
liked: the pride, the quiteness, the strong tradition, the green landscapes and
the cute Vilnius
What
I disliked: I spent a lot of time looking for the boat from Tallin or Klaipeda to
Gdansk, but although everybody was sure it existed, nobody knew where
What you
do need: curiosity for the history of such countries and love for the wildlife
ITINERARY
"So far I have travelled just only through the
western Europe; but what there's eastward?". So, me and a sweet girl called Sara
decided to buy an inter rail ticket and leaving from Milan headed north-east. An inter
rail ticket is a special ticket that lets you travel throughout Europe by train for one
month without any limit on the number of the travels; for sure it's the best way to do a
real (and cheap) travel in the old continent.
Frankly I had no idea about how far we could have got in one month, but I was very
attracted by the small unknown countries called the Baltic Republics, and I would have
done everything to get there.
[In Hungary]
[In Poland and Czech (Praha)]
The real part of the travel came when we reached the Lithuanian border in Suwalky,
eight hours from the polish capital: the desert train slowed down till at walking pace
when passed through a barbed wired gate opened by some armed soldiers. It was the gate of
running along the border a long barbed wired fence. Not very
far from the border we arrived in at the Sestokay station where there the gauge change. In
fact the gauge (the distance between the rails) in the Baltic republics and in Russia is
larger than the European one, hence you have to change train.
I felt definitely in the very east when I got on the Lithuanian wooden train, and also
when I realised the train travelled at 30 km/h!!!!!! It took a while but we arrived in the
capital, Vilnius. I liked the simplicity and
the quietness of such green cute town. While we were waiting for our visa at the Latvian
embassy we decided to hang around the country, and we ended up in Aukstaitija National Park northward of
Vilnius nearby Ignalina. From the station we hitch hiked to reach a kind of cottage in the
middle of the park where we spent a bunch of wonderful days. This was, and I hope still
is, absolutely an uncontaminated huge labyrinth of small river, swamps and lakes. We rented a kayak and tried
to have at least a taste of the wildness of the place. It's still perfectly focused in my
mind the image of the woman washing the dishes in the river near the village, or of that pulling an old trailer loaded with
salad along the unpaved road.
Unfortunately I cannot say that much about Latvia, since we just stayed half day in
Riga. However in that clear sunny morning I got a positive, even not very representative,
impression of the empty snoozing town. The nice and windy view from the high steeple of the
cathedral and the women at the market standing per
hours with just their hands as stall are my images of the Latvian capital.
Few hours by bus and finally we entered in Estonia!!!!!!!
We directly headed to the Estonian island of Saaremaa in the Baltic sea
and we spent some days having a deserved rest. I cannot say such island to be an
unmissable touristic highlight. In fact other than the cute town of Kuressaare it's wood,
wood and wood, with same road snaking through. However it turned out to be an interesting
off the beaten track divert where we had fun moving around the island hitch hiking and
experiencing the Estonian kindness.
Retrieved the energies we got in the northmost point of the travel: Tallinn. It's a cute town but the
influence of the wealthy tourists coming from the near Finland was quite evident, that's
why I preferred the more typical Vilnius. Anyway it was extremely nice wandering on the
cobblestone streets of the old town inside the walls, or looking the view of
the red roofs from one of the towers. You can spent a lot of time poking around the stalls that sell craftsmanship
and "matrioscas". Here I fell in love of a huge one and I bought it, without
really thinking how much I would have cursed to carry it back home, but somehow I
managed.From Tallinn we had planned to reach Gdansk by boat, but despite Lonely Planet
suggested it, there was no boat connection between Estonia and Poland.
Two hours westward of Tallinn we explored a former russian nuclear submarine base
placed on a peninsula called: Paldiski. The base was closed to the civilians till 1994,
and the last soldiers withdrew in 1995. Just got off of the train we found abandoned and
even burned high buildings, I guess the old accommodations of the soldiers. The area
seemed quite desert, and further we were going wilder the place got, till being in a kind
of wood, where hidden by the trees or by the
high grass we glimpsed former checking turrets or entries of underground passages. Then
coming back we hanged out in a small market near the station, where people were queuing to
buy the bread; the atmosphere in this area seemed one step back from the Estonia we had
seen since that moment. This my impression was confirmed several years later while I was
living in Sweden and I knew an Estonian guy, who freaked out when I said him I had visited
Paldiski. He insisted Paldiski was not Estonia and I had to forget about it.
Returning to Poland we diverted to Klaipeda to visit the Curonian spit (Neringa), a
100 km long thin strip of sand between the Baltic sea and the Curonian Lagoon. It was
extremely nice walking on this big sand dunes till the russian
border of the Kaliningrad region, where signs in the middle of nothingness
warn you can be shot in case of proceeding. From Klaipeda we headed to Suwalky entering in
Poland.
Impression about Baltic Republics
Definitely my memories about
such small hidden countries are one of the best among my travels in Europe. I liked the
atmosphere either I breathed in the town like Vilnius and Riga, either the one of the
countryside like in the Aukstaitiia National Park or in Saaremma.
The pride and the humbleness are the characteristics of such countries that after
having fought hardly for their freedom, now, that they have got it, they feel proud and
work for their future. In the country there's a sort of quietness: few cars in the
streets, trains at 30 km/h...it's a pleasure to enjoy.
It also turned out to be safe; we traveled by night train or night buses, we even
hitch hiked in Saremmaa and we have never had problems. I appreciated the variety of
landscapes: from the sandy coast of Klaipeda to the lakes and the woods of the inland
areas till the Estonian high coasts. And what you cannot miss is the train travel from
Suwalky to Sestokay crossing the Lithuanian border: first of all the summer green
landscape through the hill is wonderful and further the cross of the barbed wired border,
if still there, is funny.
A lot of things are changing; I hope it'll be an improvement for those living there,
and meanwhile not a loss for those hunters of "diversities", that I call
travelers.
Alby
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