Day 4 - Estonia

Today we're getting an early bus back to the airport to pick up a hire car so we can drive into Estonia.  I'd made contact with Avis from England and knew that it was OK to go there; we just needed to pay an additional €7. The bus stop is next to the river and only 4 mins walk from the hotel and the 25 min journey cost just €1.81 each way (although coming back we will be activating our €5 24 hour passes which we'll then use to roam around Riga all of Friday and they'll still be valid to get us back to the airport in the evening.

The Avis car hire was the usual farce; having ordered a VW Golf when we turned up they had a Skoda Kodiak assigned to us.  Ian said that was a huge vehicle and didn't think I'd be happy driving it but the only one smaller they had was a VW Tiguan so we had no choice but to accept it.  The staff warned us about the numerous speed cameras around Riga's outskirts and recommended I download Waze as that gave you warnings of fixed and mobile radar traps.  When we got to the actual vehicle, as usual I couldn't start it and had to get help but once again the chap was very good and even paired my phone with the car so we could see our route on the bigger screen.  The car was an automatic and lovely to drive, fortunately I didn't need to park in any small spaces.

Following our chat yesterday with Erlens we decided to drive east, stopping off firstly at Sigulda.  This is the new castle which seems to be a mostly used as craft workshops and as a classical concert venue.

This reminded me of something you might see at Portmerion.

And in the grounds behind lie the ruins of Sigulda old castle.

Apparently there are glorious views over the Gauja Valley from this tower's viewing platform.

But not today!

In the far distance is Turaida Castle.

One thing that did impress us though was the size and the beautiful markings of the snails here.

At the side of the car park was this cute orchestra made of old metal pieces.

Quite by chance we discovered we were very close to the National Bobsleigh Track and, having never seen one, we decided to take a closer look.

We then found out for a small entrance fee we could go in and take the lift to the top of the building where the races start from.

Not the most comfortable of vehicles.

There are different starts for the various classes, ie. single, 2 man and 4 man.

We could actually walk on the track down to a certain point and it certainly makes you realise how steep the corner banking is.

Quite a unique way to spend half an hour.  All along the roadside are wild lupins but unfortunately I didn't manage to get a decent photo.

We stopped in the little town of Cecis and had a spot of lunch in a little café before visiting the castle.  The blurb says that there are various demonstrations of how life was when the castle was occupied and on entering you're given a candle lantern as there is no lighting inside some of the buildings.  

We started to climb up this tower but it was very uneven underfoot and the candle lamp was of no use whatsoever, in fact I thought it more a hazard.  We got chatting to a French lady who was hanging around outside and she was rather concerned as her husband had disappeared up some 15 mins ago and wasn't replying to her calls.

We saw a couple of people dressed up in medieval costume talking to a large group but once the group had moved on they disappeared quickly and so we couldn't ask any questions. 

The small kitchen garden.

We were less than impressed and our visit lasted less than half hour - as we were leaving the person who sold us the tickets expressed her surprise that we were so quick and so we gave her our opinion.

A random shot from the car.

These storks made me laugh, a pity there wasn't one on all 4 pillars.

Having secured the first photo I drove a little closer and predictably one flew off.

We finally reached our destination, Valka or Valga as it's spelt in the Estonian part.  By then it was about 17:00 and raining quite heavily.  The town itself didn't appear to offer much, nor was it attractive in any way so we took our border photos and then stopped for a cuppa and snack to fulfil our "country visit" criteria before starting the long journey back.

Eesti Vabarik is Republic of Estonia in Estonian

The weather was pretty poor driving back and all in all it was a bit of a wasted day but we had a spare time so didn't mind too much.

Back at the airport we dropped the car off in the rental returns and were about to set off to walk back to the terminal (10 mins) when a kind chap offered us a lift - actually I think that was his job - and we were very pleased and it saved us getting soaked.  There was no one at the rental kiosk so we just dropped the keys and went out to catch the bus which was only a few minutes away.  We duly activated our 24 hr tickets and relaxed whilst the bus got us back to Riga centre.

A long day driving in not particularly nice weather, not a great deal to see really but another country to cross off.