Thu14Jul16: Riga, Latvia – Birzei, Lithuania (103.1km, 965.8km YTD)

Married couples have already worked out their idiosyncracies before going on a TDA tour, however, single guys and/or gals are paired up and work it out as they go.  This is my third such tour and have realised that it’s best to friendly, accommodating, and positive.  For instance, last evening about 9:30pm I was lying on my bed in the Riga hotel, window open, checking the news on my netbook computer, and Roommate comes into the room, lets rip a big fart, closes the curtains, and turns on the A/C.  When I comment about how strange it is to leave the window open with the A/C running, his comment is that the room stinks and we need the extra ventilation.  Good point!  And indeed I slept well, probably helped by the road noise from the open window and the hummm of the A/C unit; never too cool, never too humid.  Remember, always think positive.

Another good buffet breakfast, rider meeting at 7am outlining the day’s route and notice of our convoy beginning at 8am.  Sunny and a warm 20C, it seems that we’re heading out of town just as the rush hour traffic is heading in to work, so the roads are quite crowded.  Convoy ends at 5.9km and we’re on our own, cruising the A7 highway and heading south through the suburbs.

Those pine forest plantations - that stretched from the Russian border to just north of Riga – have largely disappeared, replaced by groves of deciduous trees, with larger farms growing crops of wheat & peas & barley & lavender.  We turn off onto local Hwy#190 and lose the narrow shoulder and a lot of the traffic, a gradual grade climbing away from the coast and into the hills of southern Latvia.

Lunch stop is at 65km in an open field, Ozgur presiding over the victuals, and with a great view of a storks’ nest where the family of three are at home (check left side of lunch photo).

Chris is just leaving, Peter waves and zips by while I’m chowing down, and 7 more riders arrive shortly afterwards.  A normal riding mode.


Two adults standing on the nest edge, with the head of Little Child #1 just barely visible.

There’s a rather plain Catholic church in every town, the predominant religion along the eastern side of this Baltic state, although the western border areas are solidly Russian Orthodox.

The border between Latvia and Lithuania is a river, and there’s a policeman on the bridge checking to make sure that trucks have paid their road tax before entering his country; I give him a friendly “Good morning!” wave and he waves back.  I’m not getting in as many Good Morning greetings on this trip because there are so few people out walking around in the morning – India was the best tour for that sort of thing! – but I do catch quite a few people at bus stops waiting for their ride into work and watching us cycle past.

A bit of road construction along the route, Hotel Tyla is our destination resort at about 103km, ‘cute as a button’ you might way, but it looks like rain tonight and most of the couples are getting rooms at the inn.  Everybody has a tent, however, some choose not to use it unless absolutely necessary.