James Ots

Today has been our last full day in “the Baltics” for this trip. Tomorrow we’re off to Finland again. Not sure exactly where we’ll go, but I’m sure we’ll find somewhere!

Just down the road from our hostel in Riga there’s a greenhouse-like shop which is a twenty four hour flower shop. I suppose it’s for those early morning flower emergencies. I’m now on the bus back to Tallinn. It’s pretty boring as it’s forest nearly all the way.

As Shay pays the bus driver for his ticket, someone taps on the driver’s window: Person: When does this bus arrive in Trakai? Bus driver: (Shrugs) I don’t know. Shay: It takes about three quarters of an hour, doesn’t it? Bus driver: I don’t know. Reminds me of when we started our flight to Tampere ...

Got to Vilnius today. Big tower blocks on the edge of town again, but the old town is ok – what we’ve seen of it anyway. We met Shay at the bus station, and he had already found a hostel for us to stay in, so that made things easy. Haven’t really done much today ...

Took the coach to Latvia this morning. It left at a sensible time of ten o’clock, so we could sleep in. Pretty uneventful journey; two stop and a passport control later we were in Rīga, and it looks much more Eastern Eurpoean than Estonia was. Lots of big grey buildings and tower blocks all over ...

On Friday we went to Viljandi, where my great grand-dad was mayor twice. Lots of photos. Went to Tartu, met some relatives. Went to Mustvee. Met some more relatives, but they didn’t speak English. One (Eenok – pronounced air-nock) told stories of how his father was arrested by the Russians when he was thirteen, and ...

I flew into Tampere, Finland, on Wednesday, after nearly missing the flight because the coach was very late. The (rather rubbish quality) picture on the right is a building in Tampere, which is a really nice town about 100 miles or so north of Helsinki. The airport was tiny and surrounded by forest, and after ...