Baltic States
We are considering going to Latvia in 2018. Read lots of info and reviews and a constant theme seems to be alcohol abuse. Doesn't bother me too much but wondered what others experience is/was and whether some campsites are worse than others?
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Not yet taken the caravan to Latvia yet! have been going for the past 12 years, we fly to Riga then hire a car and stay in a guest house and hotels, seen most of Latvia, long story, tracing for the wife's fathers family, last time was March 2016 looking for churches where baptisms took place and graves! Riga is very good but get out into the country to see other towns and villages. Have seen some very good sites around Riga and also seen bad ones, there is a good one in Riga and to the west on the coast at Jurmala also out towards Lake Usmas in the north west. Tukums, to the west of Riga is a very good town as is Sigulda and Cesis to the north east. Further south is Pilsrundales Palace worth spending time to look around. Most of the main roads are good now, however there are still unsurfaced roads or improved unsurfaced roads, you just need a good road map.
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Pilsrundales Palace, some of the unsurfaced roads, Riga castle, Jaunpils Castle, nice small village stayed in the castle a couple of times, good rooms and they serve very good meals, when we stayed that time it was -8c in the day and -25c at night!
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Off topic so apologies, we found Gerald Gormans book "Birding in Eastern Europe" helpful and informative when using it for parts of Poland that border Germany and the west part of Hungary when we visited there. Do you intend to base yourself in Riga and use that as a base or will you be travelling around, OP? How long are you there for?
On the subject of alcohol abuse all I can say is that we experienced a little of that from Hungarians and Romanians coming to a campsite right on the Austrian/Hungarian border one year at Ascension bank holiday time. All young men and in groups. One lot arrived at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and were blotto by 6.
We inadvertently and purely by accident managed to wake them up when leaving the site at 8 the following morning, so if they are reading this then I apologise.
Edit - On saying all of that we have seen alcohol abuse committed several times by our fellow countrymen, particularly in Spain, so you pays your money and takes your choice.
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Thanks WN. We are thinking about a trip of about a month. Spend about 10 days in Latvia and the rest of the time travelling to/from. Won't base ourselves in Riga although will visit. Have a good idea of where to go for observing particular species, I will however look up the book you reference.
Of course I'm not that naive to believe you can't see alcohol abuse anywhere, what I'm asking about is the prevalence of it on Baltic/Eastern European campsites as its mention in a lot of reviews I've read.
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