Four go on an adventure

I have been really bad with my updates with nothing for a couple of weeks so I am now playing catch up.  After we left Riga we took a slight detour because we had read that Kuldiga was a nice place to visit. It has the widest waterfall in Europe and so we though why not. We could not see any formal camp sites close by so elected for a free overnight stop in an empty carpark just behind the small pond.  After a peaceful night we were off to explore the town on what can only be described as a beautiful morning. So my first picture for you is a waterfall and I can almost hear you thinking that it does not look very wide. And you would be correct for this is NOT the widest waterfall it is simply a waterfall that we passed on the way to the widest waterfall. And so our walk brought us very quickly to what IS the widest waterfall in Europe and the first thing that must be said is that it is certainly not also the highest. In fact I am not entirely sure how high it needs to be, to be...

  Latvia would probably never have been top of our list of countries to visit prior to our being here but we have to say it is very, very nice. Riga has a most beautiful "old town" and it has such a laid back feel. No feeling of being in a mad rush to do anything. I suppose the weather helps and the weather played ball yesterday big style. We were not planning to stay in Riga and so decided to seek out a parking spot to leave the MH while we explored the city before moving on. We had identified several possibilities from our app, all very close to the centre but none of them proved to be suitable for us. They were either not as big as described to accommodate a 7.5m MH or the parking restrictions, and method of payment, were not clear enough for us to risk. We definitely do not want a parking ticket or worse still a reclamation from a pound somewhere. We decided to move outside the town and get a bus or train back in. Just as we were crossing the big bridge out of the town I ...

  The Baltic countries are not very big, especially in the north to south direction. We are of course headed roughly southwards back to Spain and so we were soon to cross the border and add our fourteenth country of the trip to our ever growing list. We were now in Latvia. The country side in Latvia is a lot like Scotland with lots of farm land but one very noticeable thing is that most of the farms have storks nests often on purpose built posts. In the second picture I think a purpose built addition is there to make the telegraph pole a suitable site for them. Our first planned stop was in Valmiera which we had seen on a youtube video and it looked reasonably interesting. Unfortunately, although everyone else seems to be enjoying heatwave conditions we are still experiencing very unpredictable weather. When we arrived we found our parking spot. We have an app that points you to camp sites but it also shows you car parks that are paid or free and where you can spend the night if yo...

And so we came to the end of our Scandinavian adventure with the last of the four capital cities. We had arrived in Helsinki, Finland. Like we have with most of the big cities, we parked up outside of the city and travelled to the centre by local transport. We had chosen a harbourside spot on a little island right by the capital. It was really perfect and after a days work we were ready to walk to the local metro station which was fifteen minutes away. The weather in Finland has been like Scotland, unpredictable and mostly wet. The forecast was bad but we had a ferry booked the next day and had no choice but to make our plans and go regardless of the weather. In actual fact, on the day of the trip the weather was great. On our arrival in Helsinki centre we walked up the metro steps and emerged into the sunshine. They certainly knew how to build railway stations back in the day. Helsinki main railway station I was keen to compare Helsinki with Stockholm in terms of their people on plint...

And so our time in Sweden came to an end. We parked up for the night in the carpark at the ferry terminal ready for the eight and a half hour crossing from Kapellskär to Naantali. Summary of Sweden? Trees, lots and lots of trees. It is normally our policy to avoid the motorways because from the motorways of the world you usually see nothing. We prefer to use the smaller roads and see the towns and villages. In Sweden it makes no difference. In both situations, between places there are trees and the places are far apart and small so motorways ended up being the prefered option in Sweden. Nice place though and glad we visited. Next adventure - Finland. The carpark slowly filled a bit with some pretty big neighbours. My advice to you is if one of these chaps wants to go before you, let him, he'll likely win the fight. The roads in Scandinavia are relatively quiet but the trucks that are there are generally big doublers like this one. Last glimpse of Sweden as we said goodbye On an eig...