Baltic Visitor

I don’t remember having read Baltic Bulletin before, although its RSS feed is in my aggregator so I guess I must have done. Today I stumbled across an article which is a few days old, in which Mike Collier evokes spring in Riga – something which reminds me of my extended trip to Latvia last year. The piece isn’t just about the weather, though, it also has plenty of evocative little touches and even a reflection on the significance of the monument to Soviet victory in Uzvaras Parks.

I’ll be keeping a closer eye on Baltic Bulletin in future.

It isn’t exactly a comprehensive survey, but I enjoyed About.com’s Latvian Culture 101 in Photos when I stumbled across it today. There are only seven images, but it provides a nice cross-section – I found the paragraph on writing sins down on rocks particularly interesting. The photos are well-chosen too.

Actually, as I was writing this post it occurred to me to check out the other Baltic countries and – lo and behold – there is a section on Lithuanian culture but not (as far as I can tell) anything on Estonia.

Following a string of incidents involving tourists behaving badly at the Freedom Monument in Riga, a British visitor to the city has been imprisoned for five days for urinating on Latvia’s most potent symbol of the struggle for independence. I would like to think that the sentence will deter others, but having seen the behaviour of a significant minority of tourists in Riga it sadly seems unlikely.

The twist in this tale comes from the Latvian interior minister Mareks Seglins, whose response to the conviction was to say that he was fed up with the spectacle of Brits abroad: “Those English pigs… they are a dirty, hoggish people.” The Latvian President later distanced himself from the remarks on national radio, while the British Embassy maintains that only a small number of British visitors get into trouble. True enough – it really is a tiny percentage of the total number of visitors – but I do find it depressing that the majority of these incidents seem to involve Brits. Ask around in Riga and you will see that as a nation we are getting a decidedly bad name.

Apologies, by the way, to any regular readers for the severe disruption to normal service recently. I moved out of the UK and have been busy with all the things which that entails. I hope to get the site back on track now. I know I’m behind with this latest bit of news, but since I’ve been following these incidents I wanted to note them here anyway.

Regular visitors to this site may have noticed that I recently added an Amazon widget in the sidebar on the right hand side of the page, allowing visitors to buy copies of some of the best Baltic guidebooks. I thought that it might be a good idea to give a run-down of the main options (although I might vary or extend the offerings over time).

The Lonely Planet: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is perhaps the one with the greatest brand recognition, and it’s a good book if you are planning to visit more than one of the Baltic countries. I don’t always agree with the assessments in the book – I think it’s unduly harsh about some of the less touristed parts of Latvia such as Daugavpils, for example – but it’s a solid choice which is particularly strong on hotel and restaurant reviews. LP also publish a short guide to Tallinn.

The Rough Guide to the Baltic States is also a good choice, with some interesting cultural material at the back and reliable practical information throughout. I haven’t seen the latest edition, which will be published in January 2008, but it will be a welcome update since the previous edition was getting a bit dated. It is possible to pre-order the new edition from Amazon.

My personal favourites, though, are the Bradt guides to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Partly this is because as single-country volumes they can go into more depth than the Lonely Planet or Rough Guide; they also display an exceptional degree of cultural sensitivity and are written by people with a genuine depth of knowledge. I can’t recommend them highly enough. The only downside is that the Lithuania and Latvia guides are due to be updated (in fact, the latter has a new edition coming out in July).

For those only planning to visit the Baltic capitals, Bradt also has mini-guides to Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius, as well as a guide to all three.

Finally, for those looking for a cheaper option the In Your Pocket guides may fit the bill. They are not available through Amazon, but are easily found within the region’s tourist centres and can be downloaded for free from the In Your Pocket website.

The first thing that most people mention about the climate of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is that the winters are really quite cold. This is undeniably true, although it never gets anywhere near as chilly as much of neighbouring Russia. The temperature in many parts of the region rarely gets above freezing between December and February, and can even drop to -20 C on very rare occasions, but that still hardly compares with the icy extremes of Siberia. In fact, the weather this year has so far been uncommonly mild. [Read more →]

From today, passengers flying with a range of airlines – including Estonian Air, Czech Airlines, easyJet, SAS and others – will be required to check in at the new southern extension of Tallinn Airport. The extension includes nine new gates and will allow the airport to handle 2.3 million passengers per year, twice as many as previously.

Source: Eesti Paevaleht (via Baltic Stand By)

The new Nordic Hotel Forum opens on Viru Square this Sunday, offering yet another accommodation option in the Estonian capital. It has 267 rooms including 8 suites, and apparently cost over 22 million Euro to outfit.

The hotel’s website raises more questions than it answers, including ‘what on earth is the “mysterious tree of dreams” which is touted as central to the New Year’s party?’ But it does give details of spa packages which look tempting – the treatments are not in the hotel itself, but in a beauty salon nearby. The hotel’s ‘relax centre’ does however have a jacuzzi and steam room.

The website doesn’t offer a rack rate for a room, but I had a look at the booking system which is all very flash (and, indeed, uses Flash). It makes it very easy to order an airport transfer, late check-out or even a dozen red roses; the dates I checked in January had doubles for 82 Euro.

As usual, I’d love to hear from anyone who actually stays there and has an opinion on the place or on the mysterious tree of dreams.

Apologies for the downtime earlier today. I updated the blog’s software (Wordpress) a few days ago and have been updating some of the plugins since then. One of them – ShareThis – was not playing nicely with the site, but somehow I didn’t notice. I was wondering why traffic had taken a nosedive and took a look. All I got was the banner at the top and an error message.

I’ve gone back to the old version of the plugin for now and will test the new one when I have more time.

Tourists considering a visit to Estonia and looking beyond the capital may want to read an article on the website of the Finnish magazine Free! The gist of John Pagni’s piece is that the islands of Saaremaa, Muhu and Abruka are attractive not for their tourist facilities but for the lack of them:

For what they haven’t got, not for what they have. The simple life can be the good life.

It’s an entertaining piece, reveling in idiosyncracies such as ‘the world’s smallest public library’ on Abruka, which captures the charm of the three islands.

The Latvian capital has a decent selection of hotels to suit every budget, but outside of the capital things are not always so rosy. Major cities such as Ventspils and particularly Liepaja have some good options, but smaller towns may only have one or two hotels and some of them are unappealing Soviet relics.

Earlier this year I spent a few weeks driving around the country conducting research for the forthcoming Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Guide to the Baltic States, and managed to find a number of decent new hotels – some of them in quite unexpected locations. Nevertheless there is certainly room for more quality accommodation.

This is why it was good to read about the development of hotel chains beyond the capital. A report in Diena newspaper, translated by Standby News, mentioned both the new Day & Night chain and the more established Kolonna. The former already has a three star hotel in Bauska (where it was much needed) and has plans for Ventspils and Cesis. The latter group, also known for its spas, has hotels in Cesis, Riga, Rezekne and Kuldiga. None of these are particularly off the beaten track, but they are good options particularly in Cesis and Rezekne.