Spent most of the 1st December driving. Had dinner near a church which claims to be the oldest in Latvia. Arriving in Riga we looked for the most interesting attraction listed on the satnav and it turned out to be the cathedral. Presumably Russian orthodox given the onion dome and the beautiful frescoes inside. There was a Christmas market outside with two pens for rabbits and sheep for the children as well as a row of stalls selling tourist tat. We stopped for the night at a service station where we got a coffee and 30 mins of wifi, but they wanted us to pay to park there for the night, so we went on to the next station and parked there for nothing.
The next day we travelled on through Latvia and Lithuania to Kaunas, where the first “historical landmark” on the satnav was the “Antis” which turned out to be four iron pillars with an iron roof in the middle of a housing estate. We then put in the “Peter and Paul” something and arrived at the cathedral in the central square of the old town. Quite pretty but rather sparse compared with the beautiful Russian churches. We also saw a strange structure with a large pyramid roof which I would probably recognise as incredibly famous and important if I knew anything about Lithuania. We then passed the border into Poland and spent the night near Warsaw.
