4th July. Backpack and sleeping-bag packed and ready. Time set and ready to leave.At some 6 p.m. all five of us were already leaving Vilnius all the way to the west following the sunset. Luckily this time there was quite plenty of space in the car for all 5 persons to travel in fairly comfort, quite unlikely to our very first trip to Latvia two years ago when most the 5 persons were so bundled in the car that the ones on the rear seat could not change their sitting position at all. The road Vilnius-Kaunas-Klaipėda and then road to Palanga were a bit loaded with many cars going the same direction, but not too bad. A few hours later then it was getting dark we crossed the Latvian border and headed to our first night stop. It was originally planned to stay at the camping near Liepoja that night, but we've changed our plans after going there. Well, the camping itself wasn't bad. Even quite vice versa - showers, cafe, the sea some 50 m away from it. But at least that night it was terribly crowded and very loud as some big company was celebrating something there. Loud music in style of local 'cicinas' and lots of happy and slightly or not so slightly drunken people were the reasons which truggered us to look for another place to stay for the night.
And here it was - a bumpy gravelled road lead us to the peacefull seaside 'inhabited' only with few other fellow campers. After a late supper or maybe very early breakfast at some 1 a.m. we retired.
5th July. Liepoja and Karosta. For the second day we had plans for visiting Liepoja and first of all Karosta - former military site with harbor, great church and military prison. While Karosta seemed very attractive in pictures while we were planning our trip, in reality it was more terrifying. A huge territory of former military site is now derelict and decaying. Lots and lots of buildings once inhabited by tsar's and later by Soviet soldiers are now empty with lots of windows smashed. And buildings which are still inhibited looks not much better. The church, though very big and very nice from the distance was not so nice when we came nearer - it still needs lots of renovation, and, most of all, people who lives there should try at least a bit to be friendlier. I always find Latvian people were friendly, but the ones we've met in that orthodox church of their made such a bad impression that all we've wanted just to leave the place as soon as possible.
After quite short discussion we've decided to skip our planned visit to Karosta military prison (though it is the only military prison open to tourist as far as I know) and to go instead to the harbor where we've found this nice and impressive pier though very very decayed. The view from the pier was nice indeed. And that church we've visited earlier looked so much better from there with its many golden turrets glinting in sunlight. And on the other side we already could see our next destination - remains of Northern fort which slightly resembles the remains of some military fort near Klaipeda but in much grander scale. These remains of military stronghold was very impressive
.The day it seemed lasted a minute and not longer how fast the evening came. And though there one can still visit another remains of the same fortification system, we moved on further north in search either for a camping or some nice spot in 'wild'. 'Wild' it seems was our theme for this trip
and
for the second night we have found such a nice place near the sea
that after the night there we've reached unanimous decision to come
back to this very place for our third and last night in Latvia.To be continued...
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