Journey: Tartu – Otepaii – Sangaste Castle – Sietiniezis (Latvia) – Unguimuiza
We were rewarded for doing our laundry with a free live band in the park, so I had a little bop by a giant rubber duck while trying to persuade Ernest he wouldn’t like the spiral potato or candyfloss stalls. Great fun, and a dash home when the rain came.
The next day we were up bright and early to explore Tartu city. I love that all the town’s have so much green space and the older parts have such beautiful architecture. Poor Mark gets taken on some random walks and one of my main reasons for visiting Tartu was the old Souptown. It is one of the last remaining 19th century slum towns in Europe, and attracted masses of poor brewery workers (Le Coq Brewery is there) who built wooden houses with allotments at the bottom of their gardens. The street names were named after soup ingredients and so of course it is great fun to wander off the beaten track and spend your morning typing street names into Google translate to see if they are a vegetable. I found Kartuli – Potato, Marja – Berry, Meloni – Melon and Herne – Pea. The remaining houses are in a mixed state of repair, a lot are run down but the area is slowly being gentrified and closer to the river it’s all new builds. As well as Souptown, we visited the town’s main cathedral, town square, parks and sculptures – it’s a lovely city.
Day 92 Part 2 – Lake swim & sand stone cliffs
From Tartu we drove to the lovely town of Otepaii and visited a positive energy column where I tried to meditate…Mabel was barking as she wasn’t feeling the positive energy and Markles doesn’t believe this stuff so had wandered off…I lasted a couple of minutes and liked the many bear heads on the column. It’s a start. As a side note I’ve been meditating every morning for 9 days now, and opted to join 10 percent happier app which I’m really enjoying (as much as I liked Headspace design, the amount of notification, adverts, and emails really put me off).
We then walked the pups around Puhajarve Rannapark and Jasper and I had a swim in the lake, Mabel had a roll and Ernest pottered about. At one point Jasper was sat with his dad watching me swim…their expressions are so funny. Mark is not remotely tempted to join me.
It was then on to Haramagi lookout which is rediculously high wooden structure in the middle of nowhere. The view is worth the climb and the aching calf muscles. Sangaste Castle was a brief stop, and don’t the tourists love it when a white delivery van parks out front and ruins all the photos 😂 Our last stop in Estonia was the supermarket right on the border which you could blink and miss, no border checks here lol. Hello Latvia!
Driving on we picked up a lovely hitchhiker called Michelle who was on his way to Riga. We weren’t heading straight there but he was happy to join us on a walk at Sietiniezis and be dropped part way. He is walking the spit of land between Latvia and the Russian enclave – it looks amazing! We can’t do it as would need a visa but he is Brazilian so can 😊 He has been travelling for 2 years and done every country in Europe, thus cementing my desire to do as many as we are able to. Romania was his favourite but he has warned me about the amount of dead and stray dogs (mostly aggressive – he got attacked for camping on dogs territory) ☹️ I know in UK we are rescuing a lot, and my Romanian doggy clients were lovely if very nervous. Seems they have a very tough life.
We enjoyed our walk along the sandstone cliffs and added a heart to the many carvings before having dinner (his first hot meal in ages) and driving on to Unguimuiza to camp for the night. Latvia is just as beautiful but with bumpier roads, and instead of spotting reindeer there are lots of storks.
SofaWolves 