Downtime in Estonia. Smoked Chicken and Apples.

So happy he gets to pick apples....for free!

From the Visitors Center at Soomaa National Park, we had the challenge of getting ourselves back to the Klaara Mnani. A few u-turns here and there and one of us recognizing a landmark here and there and we eventually managed to arrive back rather painlessly....far less painless than the reverse trip.

Hello Estonia! Bogshoeing.

Exploring a bog in Soomaa National Park. Love the footwear!

It was an early wake up call this morning. Our first destination of the day was Soomaa National Park in Estonia. We had to be there (not sure exactly where in the Park) to meet up with Aivar Ruukel, a well known local guide who has made Soomaa his area of specialty. I had seen quite a lot of information about Aivar on the web including this highlight and was looking forward to spending time with him.  Though Ieva had listed all the driving distances on our itinerary, this would be our first driving foray in to Estonia and so I had no idea what the road conditions would be like, what the road signage would be like and therefore, how long it would actually take us to get from Valmiera to Soomaa. Better to arrive early than miss our time with Aivar.

Baltic Roadtrip Day 1. Sigulda and Turaida Castle.

Bird's eye view of Turaida Castle.

After our visit to the Latvia Ethnographic Museum, we followed Ieva's itinerary and drove our way to the town of Sigulda. The main road signs in Latvia are pretty good and we arrived into the outskirts of Sigulda in no time. Our goal was to make it to Turaida Castle but we first had to find town center which turned out to be a different challenge. Ieva had instructions which we did our best to follow - back to navigating using landmarks! 

Baltic Roadtrip Day 1. Latvia Ethnographic Open Air Museum.

At the Latvia Ethnographic Open Air Museum.

Our grand Baltic driving adventure truly gets underway today! We had our final buffet breakfast at the Elizabete this morning. I'm going to miss them. All I can hope for is that the other places we'll be staying at can match the quality of what we've been enjoying here.