Klaipėda, Lithuania

Hello from Lithuania!

View of Klaipėda from the ship

While our last two ports in Estonia (Tallin) and Latvia (Riga) were the capital cities of their countries, Klaipėda is not the capital of the country. That honor would go to Vilnius almost 200 miles away. Here's an interesting fact about Lithuania: They are hosting an extremely important NATO summit in Vilnius in just a couple days. 

With no Hop On Hop Off bus to take (yay, I think?) and no ship excursions planned for me (yay for sure!) it was a day of traveling on my own. 

Passengers on ship excursions had a longer walk to get to their busses today

I stopped by the little kiosk on the dock to grab a map but do you think I used it? Nope, I followed the crowd along the Dane River.

What a beautiful day for a scooter stroll

Unbeknownst to me their path was ending in stairs. I turned around and retraced some of the walkway and found an incline I could take instead. Once I got near the spot where I could cross the bridge I found everyone had stopped. 

Is he trying to warn everyone?

Loads of bicyclists, cruise ship passengers, and lots and lots of young scouts with yellow scarves. We all had to stop for the Swing Bridge/Chain Bridge. It was originally built across the castle moat in 1855 and still opens and closes today. 

Boats are allowed through 15 minutes each hour.
Pedestrians are allowed 45 minutes.

The bridge is operated by two men who manually rotate the bridge with a metal bar.

Starting the process

Still spinning

Bridge is almost ready for foot traffic

From the bridge I again followed the crowd, hoping to end up at the Theater Square where a market was happening. I saw some pictures online earlier and knew it was going to be a rough cobblestone adventure. Uh, yeah. These weren't little cobblestones, but more like large river rock type of stones.

I called the first batch of cobblestones I crossed the What the Hell?! cobblestones.

The next set of cobblestones I had to cross in the square I called the What the Bloody Hell?! cobblestones.

I also ran into the What the Holy Hell?! cobblestones.

The market square was most definitely not my friend. I had to drag Scooter all along the way and it was not a pretty sight. When I first glimpsed somewhat decent pavement I headed away from the area. Where I ran into the What the &%!#@* Hell! cobblestones.

Guess who did NOT go this way?

A month ago I would have complained about
these cobblestones. Not now.

By going my own way in my own time - on only the cobblestones I could handle - I stumbled upon several interesting sights.

A giant map on the wall. At least I knew
where I was by the red dot near the middle.

Towers of flowers up close

Lunch menu of a restaurant opening at 12 with tuna tartare (?) on the menu.
Otherwise I don't know. 

A sailing ship in the water 

It's a restaurant, too

Fun little paddle boat

I watched someone having no luck trying to catch a fish

Fisherman statue 

Looks like a construction site to me

Bridge with Lithuanian and Ukrainian ribbons tied onto it

Try and follow those turn lanes painted on the road. Oh, my.

Tree of Love is covered in love locks

Interesting combination of architecture

Beautiful mosaic on the wall

Now that's one way to see the city!

I really enjoyed my time along the waterways the most as they were the prettiest of the spaces. Plus the pavement was not too shabby either.

Rain was on its way

I made my way back to the ship still without using the map but I was determined to figure out where I spent the day. I used the pictures (including the dozens I deleted) to help trace my route. 

Just a gal and her scooter in Lithuania

Tomorrow we'll be in our last country of this cruise. Poland, here we come! 

Keeping track of my progress on tastes and smells: 1. Maple fudge tasted sweet. 2. Rosemary tasted like something other than toilet water. 3. Lavender sachet smelled like lavender. 4. I caught a brief whiff of the smell of sunscreen when I was putting it on my face.

Riga, Latvia

Hello from Riga! 

View from my balcony

Early morning almost-docked view

Wanting to do something other than the Hop On, Hop Off bus, I found Riga has a central market full of just about anything anyone would need. Fresh fruits and vegetables, fish and meats and dairy. Restaurants and bars. Five large bustling buildings - former Zeppelin hangars - full of Latvians selling local products. Their website says 80,000-100,000 people visit a day. And I wanted to go there.

It looked like the path might be manageable for the scooter, but wasn't sure if we could get there, go through all the buildings, and get back on the battery charges. So when I spied the HOHO bus right off my balcony and found out the bus stops at the market, I decided to take the easy way out.

Seems like it's always the HOHO bus rescuing me

Better than a crowded ship tour!

The market was the first HOHO stop but I wanted to get my money's worth and do the entire loop before heading to the market. I figured I'd stop at the market on the second loop and then just scooter my way back to the ship when I was done. Except as we got near the first stop we ran into this between the market and the ship.

Big time construction

As we sat at the red light I watched pedestrians trying to navigate the crosswalks and crosswalk detours and crosswalk detours that became piles of gravel. There was no way I'd be getting back to the ship from this direction. As we passed the market I looked for an alternative way to get back to the ship or back to the bus. More detours. And closed gates. And limited crossings over the cobblestones. And crowded sidewalks. Oh, the crowded sidewalks. Can you imagine me navigating this on a scooter?

Did you know there is another word for pickpockets here?
The market's website warns tourists about cutpurses.

It was in that moment I realized my plans were changing for the day. Thanks to a couple Covid coughers on the bus I wound up on the top level, taking pictures along the rest of the route.

As usual, the architecture was interesting.

The National Library

The library up close

Orthodox Cathedral

There were several green spaces within the city. Many times little shops and stores could be found at the entrances to the parks.

Of course I had to get my street signs but there weren't any. Seriously, how does anyone know where to go? I found just one sign - and it made no sense to me.

Huh?

I got desperate and took a picture of a sign from the Circle K where the bus turned around and a sign inside the bus itself. 

Maybe they don't use signs because people are spraying their own signs? Graffiti was all over the place and it was obvious there isn't even an effort to try and clean any of it up. And run down buildings with people living in them? There was a lot of that, too.

This picture sums it all up. A nice little place to eat with cute flowers and clean tables. Right there with busted up concrete and a graffiti covered wall.

The HOHO narration in Estonia the other day made it clear they were proud to be independent from the Soviet Union and proud of what they've accomplished since then. But it's not the impression I got from today's narration in Latvia. When it was mentioned 40 some percent of Riga is Latvian and 40 some percent are Russian, it made sense. After those 40%s? Belarusians and then Ukrainians. Combine those ethnicities with lower incomes and current events no wonder things seem rougher here than in Estonia.

Tomorrow we're in Klaipeda, Lithuania, another country who gained their independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. I'm looking forward to seeing how it'll compare to Estonia and Latvia. See you then!

Not Visby, Sweden Again

Hello from not Visby, Sweden. Again.

I was up early watching our approach. The temperature felt warmer but the wind was just as strong as it was on Sunday when we didn't make it the first time. 

The bridge cam shows how close we were to getting in

The marinetraffic.com map shows how hard we tried

It was not to be. We should feel lucky we even got a second chance at the port. I can't remember ever missing a port and then in the same cruise going back and trying again. But this cruise itinerary was a bit different as we had extra sea days with nowhere to go. If I recall, at least one day was originally scheduled for St. Petersburg. We all know what happened there, so we wound up with extra time on our hands and only a couple hundred miles between our port stop in Estonia and tomorrow's in Latvia. So the second attempt at Visby was, well, attempted.

The final word came during breakfast and as soon as it was announced I knew how I was going to spend my day.

I sat on the balcony and dozed off in my chair right after breakfast. Ever fall asleep sitting up and your head jerks forward or jerks back? Yeah, that happened more than once. I wouldn't be surprised if I was snoring out there, too. Once I woke up from that little nap I changed into shorts and my swimsuit top and headed back out for the day. Lunch rolled around soon enough, and since the port day turned into a sea day the dining room was serving lunch. Not one to ever step foot in a cruise ship dining room anymore, I ordered in. Why do I skip the dining room? Check out the blog post from 2018 explaining it.

Lasagna with a view

Speaking of food, yesterday was the Most Traveled Guest Luncheon. I didn't pay close attention but the cutoff for an invite was 500+ days. We had the previous Captain Circle host Patrizia at our table but this was the last one she will be attending. The luncheon is now hosted by the future cruise consultant who is taking on loyalty duties, too. Thankfully the nice menu hasn't changed.

Crunchy coating on the prawns

The rosemary wound up being important

As usual, desserts are beautiful

And as usual, I couldn't smell or taste a thing. Except...the rosemary sprigs. While it didn't taste like rosemary, I could tell there was some kind of flavor to it unlike every other thing I eat that still tastes like toilet water.

Tomorrow we'll be in Riga, Latvia. Like I said before, it's an amazing itinerary. See you then!

Keeping track of my progress on tastes and smells: 1. Maple fudge tasted sweet. 2. Rosemary tasted like something other than toilet water. 3. Lavender sachet smelled like lavender.