Day 31 - From Tallinn to Riga

Today’s blog will be pretty short as most of today has been spent on a train. I will start with last night though.

Once the Man Utd-Arsenal game was over, I walked to the old port to pick up a letterbox cache that I’d had my eye on. I had not realised quite how much was there, and not only found an impressive cache but also a big retail area, including a supermarket. It was, I decided, time to deal with my unsatisfactory breakfast situation and create a cereal kit - a small bag of cereal that could fit into a Tupperware (that would also do as a bowl) and a picnic spoon. It took me a while to figure out the milk situation; but ChatGPT helped and I was able to have cereal as both a snack last night and breakfast this morning. Result.

It was an early-ish start today to catch the train. I did get to the station early enough to have plenty of time to find a final Estonian geocache though!

The next 6.5 hours was essentially this though:

The scenery did not change much, except when we briefly passed through Tartu, Estonia’s equivalent to Oxford or Cambridge, and changed train at Valga on the border. I did use my time well though to read, listen to podcasts, and watch some shows on Amazon Prime.

On arrival in Riga, Google maps safely delivered me to my hotel. The hotel has slightly weird vibes that I can’t put my finger on (it might be that it’s quite small and I haven’t seen another guest yet!), but the room is nice and a stone’s throw from the Old Town, which is where I am typing this from. There are loads of restaurants around the square, a lovely atmosphere, and some nice buildings.

I have chosen the restaurant with some good live music playing and await my dinner! I will have a bit of an explore when I am fuelled (read: find my first Latvian cache), ready for more adventuring tomorrow.

Stat update:

Countries: 9 🇬🇧 🇧🇪 🇳🇱 🇩🇪 🇩🇰 🇸🇪 🇫🇮 🇪🇪 🇱🇻

Towns/cities visited 🏙️ : 14

Trains 🚆 : 21

Distance by train 🚆 : 3119km

Ferries ⛴️ : 2

Distance by ferry ⛴️ : 494km

Geocaches 🧐: Traditional: 61, Virtual: 49, Mystery: 4, Webcam: 2, Event: 1, Letterbox: 1, AdLab: 359

Parkruns 🏃‍♀️: 3

Football matches ⚽️ : 3

Church towers climbed ⛪️: 3

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