This is an overview post about our recent trip to the Baltics: Tallinn, Estonia; Riga, Latvia; and Vilnius Lithuania. It will be followed by individual posts on the where we went and what we did. On this post, I'm going to give an introduction to our adventures so I won't need to set the scene in the posts to follow.
The Good.
We went to the Baltics because I had read that Riga was the Art Nouveau architecture capital of the world: more Art Nouveau buildings than anywhere else. This may be true, but as I'll explain in later posts, it demands you accept a pretty broad definition of Art Nouveau. Planning the trip, we thought we would visit all three Baltic states, as each had a distinct medieval old town and each had been the European Cultural Capital and they are easily linked for travel.
Planning this trip, I used Jayway Travel, a company specializing in Central and European travel. They provide all levels of service, including a number of guided excursions. We are used to travelling on our own and orienting ourselves to a city, so we went basic. They offered us an itinerary that consisted of our hotel rooms and all transfers. That is, they picked us up at the airport in Tallinn and took us to our hotel, picked us up at our hotel in Tallinn, gave us bus tickets to Riga, took us to the Tallinn bus station, picked us up at the Riga bus station--you get it--all the way to our transfer from Vilnius hotel to airport. The fee was very reasonable and took care of all the logistics that can make travel cumbersome. (The exact amount depends on the price of the hotel; we generally took the cheapest or next to cheapest--all four stars--and were perfectly happy.)
We enjoyed seeing these three countries, which had been on our radar for a long time. As I will detail in coming posts, we saw some gorgeous places, ate great food, stayed in nice hotels, and generally had a good time. The good parts definitely made up for the not so good. More on that to follow.
The Not So Good.
The first two weeks in November are considered off-season. We generally like off-season (e.g. our Februaries in Budapest) because it's less crowded, cheaper, and less of a tourist thing. But it is off season for a reason: weather. According to the weather statistics, the Baltics average about 15 days a month sunny and 15 days a month cloudy. If you look at the picture above, you will see it's sunny. Our third day in Tallinn was the only day we saw sun. Every other day was cloudy, gray and increasingly cold. This is no one's fault, and we make the best of it. (At least it rarely rained and didn't snow.) But if you travel off-season, you need to be ready to accept the odds, which this time were not in our favor.
The Truly Horrible
Facebook friends can skip this part because it's already been posted and commented on. You never know what the travel gods, and on our flights home, they decided to play even dirtier.
From Facebook;
Our two days of Travel
Thursday got up at 4:00 am Lithuania time, which is 7 hours ahead of US. Flew to Copenhagen. 10:00 Copenhagen time boarded flight to Newark. Arrived EWR about 1:00 pm and sat on runway for about a half hour in snow and ice. Eventually went through immigration and security. Settled into EWR airport; lots of snow and many flights cancelled. Waited for our 5:00 flight to Louisville which was listed "on time." Watched while it was delayed to 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00 and eventually cancelled at 10:00. By then were no seats on flights to Louisville available for the next day. Rebooked for next day flying into Lexington and then renting a car. By the time had rebooked flight and rented car, there were no hotel rooms near EWR with free shuttle. Booked a (nonrefundable) room in a hotel with no shuttle but near EWR. Stood in taxi line of over 50 people for two hours and barely moved. Basically no taxis. Returned to airport and re-entered security. Very long line. Finally back inside the terminal. Sat in bar and got a drink. Tried to find relatively quiet part of a terminal that runs all night. Lights never go out and announcements continue. Got useless phone call at 1:45. Slept fitfully from about midnight to 4:30 in uncomfortable terminal seats.
Spent Friday morning desperately hoping our plane would take off, which it did. Rented car and drove from Lexington to Louisville (about 60 miles). Hit huge traffic jam in Louisville. Got home around 8:00 pm--about 47 hours since we started. So happy to be home.
Why This is a Narrative of Retirement Blogpost
Some of my posts are about life in general or where we are travelling or what I'm reading, etc. But occasionally I reflect on the story of being retired: my narrative of retirement. This is one of those posts. In particular, I want to write about travel in retirement.
Travelling is one the best things about retirement--and one of the aspects of retirement I most looked forward to. Tony and I have always travelled as much as we could, but now we have lots more time. And we want to take advantage of it as long as we can. This last part--as long as we can--has been the focus of my attention since the Baltics trip.
Our current plan is a small trip in November (last year Spain, this year the Baltics, next year maybe Italy) and February in Budapest. This gives us variety and consistency: the feelings of both travelling somewhere new and living somewhere in Europe we know and love. Budapest remains on the table for as long as we can travel. But these short trips are becoming increasingly hard.
I did the Jayway thing because it removed all the logistical complications of travel inside the trip. The getting of train tickets, getting to train stations, getting to hotels had been burdensom in our trip to Spain and we thought this would make it easier. Which it did. But it is still a hassle to come and go with your little roller suitcase and your heavy camera bag. We also felt the cold more than we expected. But the killer was the 48 hour trip home. I had assumed that at this point in my life, I had enough money so that things like sleeping in an airport didn't need to happen. But the truth was, it didn't matter how much money I had: I could not get out of EWR that night. I along with many people who could also presumably afford a hotel room were stuck, sleeping in chair, on the floor. It was horrible. And there was nothing I could do about it. Weather rules. Right now, I plan on keeping to our original plan of two trips a year, but how long that plan will be feasible is somewhat on my mind.
Stay tuned. The good stuff about the Baltics will be the subject of several blogposts to follow.
The Good.
We went to the Baltics because I had read that Riga was the Art Nouveau architecture capital of the world: more Art Nouveau buildings than anywhere else. This may be true, but as I'll explain in later posts, it demands you accept a pretty broad definition of Art Nouveau. Planning the trip, we thought we would visit all three Baltic states, as each had a distinct medieval old town and each had been the European Cultural Capital and they are easily linked for travel.
Planning this trip, I used Jayway Travel, a company specializing in Central and European travel. They provide all levels of service, including a number of guided excursions. We are used to travelling on our own and orienting ourselves to a city, so we went basic. They offered us an itinerary that consisted of our hotel rooms and all transfers. That is, they picked us up at the airport in Tallinn and took us to our hotel, picked us up at our hotel in Tallinn, gave us bus tickets to Riga, took us to the Tallinn bus station, picked us up at the Riga bus station--you get it--all the way to our transfer from Vilnius hotel to airport. The fee was very reasonable and took care of all the logistics that can make travel cumbersome. (The exact amount depends on the price of the hotel; we generally took the cheapest or next to cheapest--all four stars--and were perfectly happy.)
We enjoyed seeing these three countries, which had been on our radar for a long time. As I will detail in coming posts, we saw some gorgeous places, ate great food, stayed in nice hotels, and generally had a good time. The good parts definitely made up for the not so good. More on that to follow.
The Not So Good.
The first two weeks in November are considered off-season. We generally like off-season (e.g. our Februaries in Budapest) because it's less crowded, cheaper, and less of a tourist thing. But it is off season for a reason: weather. According to the weather statistics, the Baltics average about 15 days a month sunny and 15 days a month cloudy. If you look at the picture above, you will see it's sunny. Our third day in Tallinn was the only day we saw sun. Every other day was cloudy, gray and increasingly cold. This is no one's fault, and we make the best of it. (At least it rarely rained and didn't snow.) But if you travel off-season, you need to be ready to accept the odds, which this time were not in our favor.
The Truly Horrible
Facebook friends can skip this part because it's already been posted and commented on. You never know what the travel gods, and on our flights home, they decided to play even dirtier.
From Facebook;
Our two days of Travel
Thursday got up at 4:00 am Lithuania time, which is 7 hours ahead of US. Flew to Copenhagen. 10:00 Copenhagen time boarded flight to Newark. Arrived EWR about 1:00 pm and sat on runway for about a half hour in snow and ice. Eventually went through immigration and security. Settled into EWR airport; lots of snow and many flights cancelled. Waited for our 5:00 flight to Louisville which was listed "on time." Watched while it was delayed to 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00 and eventually cancelled at 10:00. By then were no seats on flights to Louisville available for the next day. Rebooked for next day flying into Lexington and then renting a car. By the time had rebooked flight and rented car, there were no hotel rooms near EWR with free shuttle. Booked a (nonrefundable) room in a hotel with no shuttle but near EWR. Stood in taxi line of over 50 people for two hours and barely moved. Basically no taxis. Returned to airport and re-entered security. Very long line. Finally back inside the terminal. Sat in bar and got a drink. Tried to find relatively quiet part of a terminal that runs all night. Lights never go out and announcements continue. Got useless phone call at 1:45. Slept fitfully from about midnight to 4:30 in uncomfortable terminal seats.
Spent Friday morning desperately hoping our plane would take off, which it did. Rented car and drove from Lexington to Louisville (about 60 miles). Hit huge traffic jam in Louisville. Got home around 8:00 pm--about 47 hours since we started. So happy to be home.
Why This is a Narrative of Retirement Blogpost
Some of my posts are about life in general or where we are travelling or what I'm reading, etc. But occasionally I reflect on the story of being retired: my narrative of retirement. This is one of those posts. In particular, I want to write about travel in retirement.
Travelling is one the best things about retirement--and one of the aspects of retirement I most looked forward to. Tony and I have always travelled as much as we could, but now we have lots more time. And we want to take advantage of it as long as we can. This last part--as long as we can--has been the focus of my attention since the Baltics trip.
Our current plan is a small trip in November (last year Spain, this year the Baltics, next year maybe Italy) and February in Budapest. This gives us variety and consistency: the feelings of both travelling somewhere new and living somewhere in Europe we know and love. Budapest remains on the table for as long as we can travel. But these short trips are becoming increasingly hard.
I did the Jayway thing because it removed all the logistical complications of travel inside the trip. The getting of train tickets, getting to train stations, getting to hotels had been burdensom in our trip to Spain and we thought this would make it easier. Which it did. But it is still a hassle to come and go with your little roller suitcase and your heavy camera bag. We also felt the cold more than we expected. But the killer was the 48 hour trip home. I had assumed that at this point in my life, I had enough money so that things like sleeping in an airport didn't need to happen. But the truth was, it didn't matter how much money I had: I could not get out of EWR that night. I along with many people who could also presumably afford a hotel room were stuck, sleeping in chair, on the floor. It was horrible. And there was nothing I could do about it. Weather rules. Right now, I plan on keeping to our original plan of two trips a year, but how long that plan will be feasible is somewhat on my mind.
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