Latvia and Estonia
Motorcycle trip in Latvia and Estonia
After 21 hours of travelling from Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, we land in Riga in Latvia. It’s a cultural and thermal shock! Landing in Europe with a temperature of 8 degrees, after travelling in Asia with a temperature of 34 degrees for our last days, it’s quite a bit change for us.
Riga, capital of Latvia, is a very enjoyable city. Our sidecars should arrive at the port in the next few days. This gives us enough time for some paperwork.Being in Europe, we take the opportunity for taking care of our Russian visas. Indeed, it’s easier to ask this visa in an European country due to our French nationalities. As we are not Latvian residents and therefore not having a resident permit, we only have the option of getting a touristic visa with a single entry valid for 30 days. The paperwork being quite tricky, it’s finally “1 Travel” agency who takes care of our visas which should be ready in the next 10 days. We need to give a date for the start of our visas, we choose the date of the 29th of April which should give us enough time to collect our visas and reach the Russian border.
In the meantime, we enjoy Riga and its area. There is a unique charm in this city. Walking in the paved and colourful streets, while watching the architecture is very enjoyable.We leave Riga for a few days and take the train (train tickets are cheap here) to reach Jūrmala, only 30 minutes away. Located by the Baltic Sea, for the first time we enjoy walking along on its beautiful white sandy beaches. The National Park of Kemery is a good surprise with nice walks alongside lakes between pines and heathers.
After visiting this area, we go back to Riga as our container with our sidecars have been delivered to the port. Thankfully, the customs clearance is done in only one day without any issue thanks to Railway Logistics Service contracted by Wave-VS. We just need to wait a few days more to receive our Russian visas.
We take this opportunity for working a bit on the sidecars and to discover the National Park of Gauja, the largest park in Latvia, including the nice Turaida castle.
Our visas being delayed, we finally go back to Riga on the Monday 29th to collect them. Once in our hands and without a second thought, we ride over 400 kilometres to cross Latvia and Estonia to reach the Russian border in Narva within the same day.
