You have a perfect morning when you wake up to the sound of the sea, and when you open the tent you look straight at it, could it be better?
Great view from the tent
We woke up and did what we agreed yesterday, 1.2.3 jump! Jumping into the sea is just refreshing and a good start of the day. After a short swim, we shower and pack our camp. We are ready for Aina’s last day on the bicycle, we will arrive Riga later today.
The bicycles are oiled up and are ready, the camp is packed. After 2 Km we stop at the small shop to buy some food. The swim was a perfect start of the day, but staying for several hours in the morning without breakfast is not.
Finally we’re on the road. The energy level is not too high today, but not low either. It doesn’t take long before we’re on the gravel roads.. Or is it? This is sand, not gravel. The road disappears under our wheels. It’s 8.5 long kilometers, we’re going really slow..dont’t want to fall.
Suddenly we hear some cars, we’re getting closer to the main road. It will be amazing to ride on some paved road again! Music is on, and we continue further south.
It’s nice when you come of the main road and can concentrate a bit on the conversation instead of all the cars. We can’t complain, the road shoulder is helping a lot.
We arrive at a huge queue of cars. We just cycle past them, it could be like this for a long distance, and so it is. The line is probably 5-6Km, we carefully cycled passed all the cars and arrives at the front. There is some road work ongoing and only 1 lane is available.
Hello Riga, beautiful Riga!
Finally we can see the Riga sign, it’s a good feeling, but you know that it’s a big city and that you can still go on for hours. On and off cycle paths, over the railway, cross the road… It’s so much to concentrate about.
Hello old town, beautiful old town. We cycle over the canal, and continue through these amazing streets, with all the beautiful buildings and scenery. We cross the river and turn right, it’s only 1-2 Km left to the camping.
We arrive at Riverside camping. On the website they brag about how cool they are, how different in a good way, about the boat they have that will take you to the old town, about their washing machine and so on…. What does it matter when this is on a industrial area, with a 24 hour operated ship terminal that loads sand. The boat only leaves if there is 4 people, the washing machine closed at 5… In my opinion, 1 out of 6…
After having a shower, we order a taxi to the old town. We walk around and have some drinks and food. It’s a beautiful city. We managed to book a taxi for Aina to the airport with the bicycle. Rest of the evening is spent in the old town. We met some friendly girls from Oslo as well.
One of them were originaly from Latvia, which not all the bartenders knew. So when we bought a drink, she understood what they said in Latvian language behind the bar. F****** tourists…. Come on mate, you live of tourism, accept it, be friendly and put on a smile!
It’s Aina’s last day, I will be alone on the road again tomorrow, which will be weird. I’ve gotten so used to having company now.
Aina’s last little corner:
This morning we just got out of the tent, went down to the beach and jumped
in the baltic sea! It was lovely!
Then we packed our bags and got out on the road again. Today we spent alot
of time on the mainroad, with music in our ears. It was nice when we got of
the mainroad and we could talk again.
The feeling when we saw a sign that said «Riga» was amazing. I reached my
goal! I just didn’t consider that Riga is a H U G E city and we had to
cycle through most of it. But it was nice to see the city from a bike, even
though we both were kind of empty on the energylevel. Reaching the camp was
nice. And experiece Riga at night was amazing. Nice city, nice peolpe. Wemet two girls from Oslo who set down with us and made our evening even
better 🙂
But hey, I reached my goal. My G O A L! It feels so good! But it is sad to
go home. I really liked this type of vacation.
Good luck on the rest of the tour, Stian! You are a machine! It’s been a
pleasure to join you this week!
The last greetings from Aina
(who has cycled 722 kilometers in 6 days)
Pictures from today’s trip:
GPS Data from today’s trip: