Baltic (5-end): Helsinki

We arrived in Helsinki around 17:30, it was a bit rough sea trip but I managed to sleep for a while during the trip. We directly went to the Tourist Information (still with our luggage) and got several useful information (such as how to reach our hostel :-P). After checked in and dropped our luggage, we walked to the city center. Helsinki is lovely city though I have heard from some friends that it's not really a city worth to visit. I like Helsinki more than Oslo or Copenhagen, but I am not sure to compare it with Stockholm, still love Stockholm so much.
I like the atmosphere in Helsinki, the pedestrian area, the Senaintorri square where I sat to see the clouds moved, and the Esplanade garden, oh the train station was also nice. I only don't like the price there :-P That late afternoon we visited the elegant Tuomikirkko and Uspenski orthodox church. We finished the day with a late dinner in a local fast food restaurant called Chilli (welcome to Helsinki...no more fancy restaurants :-P).

The next day was the last day of our trip, time is indeed passed by so fast when you are in holiday :-( We checked out and put our luggage in a locker in train station. Our first destination was the old market hall. It was not so big but very nice market hall (very clean) and they also sell some interesting things, such as mint marmalade :-P We had breakfast there and then we went to the nearby market square to do...souvenir hunting hehe. We then took a ferry to Suomenlinna, the famous fortress island 15-min by ferry from Helsinki. It is a Unesco World Heritage site and has an original name, Viapori from the Finnish, before was named Sveaborg (fortress of Swedish), and finally re-named as Suomenlinna (fortress of Finnish). It was raining when we arrived there, but thankfully it stopped when the guided tour was about to start. The guide was so funny and expressive which made the guided tour more attractive on that cloudy day. The fortress has a very interesting history. It actually consists of six small islands which were connected and was designed as a fortress with some underground tunnels.

We left Suomenlinna around 14 and decided to explore Helsinki more. We had our lunch at Wrong noodle house (strange name, isn't it) and then took tram to Temppeliaukio kirkko (gosh, difficult name!). It is quite a special church in Helsinki since the interior was excavated and built into the rock. The natural light comes through from the glazed dome and it is used frequently as a concert venue due to its excellent acoustics. Our last program that day was watching a free folks musical performance in Esplanade square, which was really interesting, before going to the train station to get the airport bus. Our flight was at 21.25 and we arrived safely around 22:30 in Duesseldorf. Ja, wieder zu Hause... :-)

Baltic (4): Tallinn

We left Riga at 10am using Eurolines bus and arrived inTallinn around 14:00. We passed through Parnu which looked like a nice small town with a lot of timber houses. The scenery was beautiful a long the way to Tallinn, somehow I felt that we were already in Scandinavian countries. The bus station is located a bit far from the city center so we had to take tram to go to Balti Jaam (railway station), dropped our luggage to our hotel and then we started our exploration in Tallinn.

Tallinn is so medieval, you can find the old medieval wall everywhere in the old town area, but it is also very touristic compared to the Baltic cities that we have visited (got the feeling that the old town is dedicated for tourists...hmm like open air museum hehe). We had early dinner in Olde Hansa, a very pretty medieval style restaurant (told you everything in Tallinn is so medieval), they even have a medieval toilet and wash basin (seriously, it was like going back to medieval time :-P). We walked around the old town and did some souvenirs hunting (but the price for souvenirs in Tallin is unbelivable expensive, kind of warming up to Finland's price maybe..) and we reserved a bike tour (yes biking is addictive :-P) to Laheema National Park for the next day.

We started our bike trip using minibus to Palmse around 9am and it was foggy in Tallinn and was even more foggy in Palmse :-P. There were five of us in the group, Aneeka from Germany, John from England, and Shinichi from Japan (yup five people from five different countries :-)). We visited its visitor center and watched a 17-min movie about Laheema National Park there. Then we officially started our bike tour after stop by for a photo shot at the misty Palmse manor. We headed for Sagadi, and had another photo shot in Sagadi manor with a pretty souvenir shop, then we passed through Oandu and Altja. We have been recommended to have lunch in Altja because it has a very nice old tavern, but unfortunately it was reserved for a private party when we were there, so we decided to have our lunch in Vergi after did a bit walk in Altja. It turned out that the only restaurant in Vergi was located at its port which was a bit far from the main road in the middle of nowhere and ... yeah it was still foggy. After lunch we continued our bike trip to Vosu, stopped by at its beach before cycled to Kasmu, our final destination where we would be picked up with the minibus to return to Tallinn. It was still around 16 when we arrived in Kasmu (which is a pretty village with again a lot of timber houses), in our meeting point we met the girl from the City bike who arranged the trip and and she encouraged us to take another route to Vana-Juri and Palganeem (errr that's if we were right reading the map, because we just followed the road in the wood). It was a nice additional trip since it was more like doing mountain biking inside the wood. All in all we did around 40km bike trip and we returned to Tallinn around 19. Shinichi decided to join us for a dinner in Clazz, a classy restaurant in front of the Olde Hansa. We had a nice dinner together and kind of funny to realize that day was 17th of August, Indonesia's independence day and I spent that day with a Dutch man and a Japanese man, a proof that we can live in harmony now :-P

The next day we went to Kadriorg park to visit Kadriorg palace which has a lovely small garden. We walked to Russalka monument and had a bit walk along the famous Pirita tee, before taking bus to Pirita beach. Too bad that the monastery was closed for visitor that day, so we directly walked to the beach which was almost completely deserted that day (it was a chilly Monday afternoon). We had a drink in a cafe called Velvet (which has a strange luxurious bathroom :-P), spent some time there and then decided to return to the old town. After a bit walking (hmm did we really walk in the old town that day? :-P) we dropped by at Kehrwieder, a nice cafe at the Raekoja square (oh yes it was raining, that was our excuse to have cafe hopping that day :-P). But at least we managed to visit the medieval street called Laboratoriumi and its Ukranian church. We had dinner around 18:30 at Venaejema Jures which has old decoration and cave-like interior, then left to the Raekoja (town hall) to see the Chamber music festival which was a beautiful performance.

After breakfast the next day, we visited the market behind the train station which reminded me of Indonesian market with better cleanliness (and different things to sell for sure). We planned to walk through the secret tunnel below Kiek-in-de-Kook, a tall tower built in about 1475 , but they only had group guided tour and the only available group that day would be done in Estonian. So we decided to visit Museum of Occupation which has an interesting display of Estonian history during German and Soviet occupation. We stayed there until around 13:30 and had our lunch in Kompressor, a budget restaurant famous of its huge and delicious pancake (had strawberry, whipped cream and chesse pancake there .. yummy). After lunch we picked up our luggage and walked to the Lindaline port for our ferry to Helsinki at 16:00. It was a nice time we had in Tallinn, a bit more relaxing than what we had in the previous cities but still we had to say good bye to the lovely medieval Tallinn that afternoon.

Baltic (3): Riga

The weather was not on our side when we arrived in Riga that afternoon after around 5-hr bus trip from Klaipeda. We walked to the old town area to have lunch and it was shower, on and off. The sky was completely cloudy but it did not demotivate us to explore Riga. After having lunch, we decided to take a self-guided walking tour recommended by the Tourist Information Center. We started to walk from the Town hall square, visiting the beautiful Blackheads building - St Peter Church and then went to the direction of the Elizabeth iela - Alberta iela where we can find the amazing Art Nouveau buildings along those streets. It was quite a long walk and we ended our walking tour with a dinner in one of the famous Lido restaurant in Riga (you have to try that restaurant if you visit Riga...).

The next day, we started our trip quite early to Sigulda. We took bus around 9 and arrived one hour later in Sigulda, which is part of Gauja National Park. After dropped by to its visitor center, getting a free map and some important schedule, we decided to take a cable car to Krimulda at 11. The Krimulda castle is now being used as a rehabilitation cente. We also visited the ruin of the old castle and then walked (a bit hiking actually) around 30-40 mins to reach Turaida castle. We visited the museum, climbed the tower to get a nice view of the national park, and spent sometime exploring its surounding park. We took a bus to return back to Sigulda to visit the Sigulda castle before leaving Sigulda at 15:50. It was a nice castle hopping :-)

We reached Riga around 17:00 and agreed that it's completely too early to end the day :-P We decided to go to Jurmala and after getting some info on how to get there, we took train to Majori at around 17:30. Jurmala is a beach resort 32-km from Riga which is famous as Baltic riviera. It consists of 14 townships spreading along the coast and Majori and Dzintari are the main townships of Jurmala which is linked by Jomas iela, a 1-km pretty pedestrian street with a lot of restaurants and shops, and a lot of timber houses. After walked along the Jomas, we explored the beach and had a dinner in a Thai-Indian restaurant. The food was delicious, I drank my fave mango Lassi (a bit strange combination indeed Thai food with Lassi :-)). It gave me a proof that I am still Asian who loves Asian food (no more potatoes plizz :-P).

We started the next day around 9 and took bus to Bauska then to Pilsrundale to visit Rundale palace. Pilsrundale is not that far away from Riga (ca. 75 km) actually, but the public transportation to reach it is not that good, so we really have to plan our schedule carefully. We reached the palace around 11:30 and bought the ticket to visit the palace and its French garden. The palace is quite impressive, a bit remind me of Versailles, but the garden is not that big (I know it is difficult to compete with Versailles :-P). We finished the visit around 13:00 and thought that we could catch the bus at 13:29. But apparently the schedule is not there to be applied, we finally got the bus to Bauska at 14:30 (no idea, whether it was too early, since the next bus was supposed to be at 14:49, or too late :-P).

We arrived in Riga around 16:30 and visited Riga central market which is close to Riga bus station. It was quite a huge market consists of six hangars, we went to the old town again after exploring the market. That day was the first day of Riga Svetki event where we can enjoy several programs around Riga. We planned to see a free musical perfromance on town hall square at 21:00 and decided to spent the time in the old town (hmm also known as souvenir hunting :-P) before having dinner in Lido restaurant in old town.

It turned out to be a very nice performance, especially the bell choir from Liepaja. It lasted about one hour and on the way to return to our hostel after it finished, we found out that there was another musical performance in Vermanes garden. It was a live orchestra playing along with a movie, Vidzeme Symphonic Orchestra Latvian film music evening, Riga: old glory seen with a modern eyes.. It was really a beautiful performance, I have never seen something like that before... kind of perfect way to end our visit in Riga.

Baltic trip (2): Klaipeda and Curonian Spit

It was raining on the way to Klaipeda, but it was perfectly sunny when we arrived there at around 14:30 (it was 4-hr trip from Vilnius) :-). Klaipeda is the third largest city in Lithuania, a port city located in the western part of Lithuania, so that was our first encounter with the Baltic sea in this trip. The main reason for visiting this city is because it is the gateway to reach Curonian Spit. Curonian Spit national park (as you can read on the link) hosts some of the most beautiful sand dunes in the world and is recognized as a World Heritage Site of Unesco since 2000. The Spit itself is divided almost equally by Russia's Kaliningrad region in the south and Lithuania's national park in the north.

As usual, we dropped by to the local Tourist Information to get some advices. There were not so many things to see in Klaipeda, though I was impressed by quite a lot of Fachwerkhauser (German half-timber house) in this city. Historically the city was a Prussian city of Memel, so no wonder there are quite a lot of German buildings and also German tourists :-P. We then decided to take a short ferry trip to Smiltyne, the northern part of the Spit which is the closest part to Klaipeda and visited its quiet beach. The funny thing is that I did not realize that they have several kinds of beach there (good that Remko read something about that before). Basically they have beach for woman, man, family, and the nudist one... So we have to be careful to read the sign before entering a beach area :-P

The next day, we took the ferry again to the Spit and since the weather (at that time) was quite good we decided to take bike to Nida from Smiltyne (it is about 50km away). It is possible to rent a bike in Smiltyne and drop it at Nida so we do not have to cycle again to Smiltyne (otherwise..no way hehe). The bike trip was great, though on the way to Juodkrante (half way to Nida) it was raining quite hard....but cycling when raining can also be fun :-) We had a light lunch in Juodkrante (after 25 km and the rain... I need something to eat :-P). The area is famous of its smoked fish which reminds me of bandeng asap (Indonesian smoked fish). I had salat with smoked fish and it was good. We then continued cycling (thanks God it was not raining anymore), passing by the scenic villages of the Spit: Pervalka and Preila with their pretty timber houses.

Finally we reached Nida around 16:30. Nida is nice village and was surprisingly quite crowded with tourists. We visited the 52-m high Parnidis dune (or the Great dune) which is really beautiful. It was nice view from it but the stairs really hurt my legs (well I have not cycled for more than one year and that day I had my 50-km bike trip). After spent some time in Nida we returned back to Smiltyne by bus, it was one hour trip and along the way we met a group of forest pigs (and the bus stopped to let us having some moments with them :-P). We reached Klaipeda around 20:30 and had dinner in Kurpiav, a nice restaurant with jazz live music. It was really a nice day to end our visit in Klaipeda and Lithuania, since the next day we had to leave for Riga, Latvia.

Baltic trip (1): Vilnius

I had my summer holiday (finally!) three weeks ago, this time I had 12-day traveling in some Baltic countries: Lithuania (Vilnius-Klaipeda-Curonian Spit), Latvia (Riga), Estonia (Tallinn-Laheema National Park), and Finland (Helsinki, but well I am not sure whether Finland is included to what so called Baltic countries...but at least it's still in the area :-P). This year I visited some Eastern Europe countries which are just recently included to Schengen agreement (meaning no additional visa needed for me, it is kind of my celebration :-P). I still miss Hungary, Slovakia, and Slovenia though... hopefully I can visit Budapest this year, keep my fingers crossed :-).

Remko, my Dutch friend who is just recently returned back to the Netherlands after working in Indonesia decided to join me for this trip. We started the trip with a flight delay (yeah what a start :-P), but I was so excited with the idea of having 12-day holiday... so I did not really care at that time.. We should have been departed at 08:45 but the flight was delayed to 10:10...quite a long delay actually...I only thought that I could sleep longer :-P

We arrived in Vilnius at 13:30. After getting the free map and advices from the Tourist Information, we walked around the old town. Vilnius has a lot of churches....I mean really a lot... I can not remember the names, only one church that I find a bit different than the others: the St. Anne church which is a bit gothic. That day we had a nice dinner in Balti Drambliai, a cheap vegetarian restaurant in the old town.

The next day, we started early and went directly to the bus station for Trakai. We took bus at 09:15 and arrived in Trakai around 10:00. Trakai is a very nice small town (or village?). It was quite important place around 13th century as the Grand Duke of Lithuania lived in the island castle of Trakai for some time. Before reaching the island castle, we passed through some colorful timber houses a long the main road. Trakai also famous of its Karaite sect people. They are originally from Baghdad and were brought by Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas from Crimea in ca. 1400 to serve as bodyguards. There were about 380 Karaite families at that time and now only around 63 remain in Trakai.

The island castle is beautiful, though it's really obvious that they just recently renovated it. We visited the Trakai museum inside the castle and then we visited the ruin of Peninsula castle and had a light Karaite lunch on the way back to the bus station.

We reached Vilnius around 15:00 and visited the Gediminas hill and castle to see the view of the old town from the top of the tower. Our next destination was Uzupis area. It is kind of artist district of Vilnius which in 1998 unnofficially declared the district as a breakaway state called Uzupis republic with their own president, anthem, and 41-point constitution (zoom in my pic below to read a bit of their constitution). During April Fool's day, they even stamp the visitors' passports. We had dinner in Uzupio Kavine just by the river of the Republic's main gate. We left Vilnius the next day for Klaipeda.