Jump to content
Tim
Tim

Before the holiday ...

We're about to head off for nine days in the Baltic states. The where? Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Three countries in Europe. I suspect that a few of you still don't know where we're heading, so here's a map to illustrate that we won't be a million miles away from home.

baltics-map

How did we end up choosing to come here anyway?

Well, work sent you an email to explain when you'd be on holiday this year. You had two fortnight breaks and a week in August. You were clear you wanted to spend two weeks in Croatia and you also suggested spending two weeks in a new part of Italy, following a memorable holiday last year in which we visited fifteen different places.

Anyway, we had the single week left to fill so I volunteered to do some detective work. I filled my spreadsheet with the requisite details and it became clear that we could travel to Lithuania on the Saturday from Luton and return to the same airport on the final Sunday from Riga. And the price was exceptionally cheap so I made the pitch to you.

And I'd always wanted to visit the Baltics ...

And so the decision seemed easy. I knuckled down and confirmed that it was possible to travel not only from Vilnius to Riga, but also head further north to Tallinn. That would make three countries during the holiday.

But not travelling by train.

Well, no. They do have trains here but not between the countries. It's more common to travel by coach here. Anyway, the timetables showed that we could easily do a couple of days in each of Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn, before heading home. Piece of cake.

Except for the languages.

Except for the languages.

Do you want to tell people why we'll not be using foreign languages on this holiday?

Um ... OK. We'll be visiting the three Baltic states, each of which has its own language ... and each of which is completely unrelated not only to the others but to any other languages we know.

We might be able to learn some basic words but there's no way we'll be able to remember word lists for each of three countries using totally new words. We'll cope by learning the basics when travelling from A to B and using our other languages when we land in difficulty.

So, we'll do two days in each of the cities. That sounds quite relaxed by our standards, even if not to others!

Yup. This is our experimental week. We'll stick to the main cities and get a feel for the countries. If we like them, we could come back another time and think about travelling about. We'll soon know!




User Feedback

Recommended Comments

There are no comments to display.



Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Add a comment...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.