Ten Years Around the World
On January 23rd, 2020, I wrote an update on the first five years of my ambition to visit every country in the world and, as one or two events have happened since then, a ten-year update is now due.
Ventspils the Beans
We woke up to a distinctly grimmer day in Riga, the late-Autumn weather having finally caught up with us. Our first stop was the colossal Riga Central Market, Europe’s largest and a UNESCO World Heritage site to boot.
The Latvian Job
Latvia, a country we knew about as well as we knew how to assemble IKEA furniture without instructions, was about to reveal herself in all her glory. Nestled between Estonia and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea, Latvia’s landscape is a patchwork of dense forests, winding rivers, and a coastline that somehow includes both pristine sandy beaches and ominously jagged cliffs.
Tallinn It Like It Is
Leaving Narva and the Russian border far behind, we continued the journey southwest towards Tartu, Estonia’s second city. Along the way, Lake Peipus occasionally popped into view, a massive 3,500-square-kilometre expanse of water that once hosted the Battle on the Ice in 1242—a dramatic medieval clash between the Teutonic Knights and Alexander Nevsky's Russian forces.
Narva Gonna Give You Up
We arrived in bustling Tallinn on an uncharacteristically sunny day following weeks of forests and frozen lakes in Scandinavia. I should mention early on that Estonia also classifies itself as Scandi, and it is clear from the shape of their Nordic pennants and generally relaxed pace of life that they fit quite nicely in the club.
Finnished in Style
The drive from northern Oulu to southern Helsinki could generously be described as consistent. The road stretched ahead in an unbroken line, flanked by forests so dense and uniform they could have been cut and pasted repeatedly along the route.
Ice, Ice Maybe?
The border crossing into Finland was like entering a new world. Conspicuous by its absence in Norway, snow blanketed the ground in every direction, the first proper sign of winter we’d seen on this trip. After weeks of rain, grey skies, and damp everything, it was almost a relief to finally encounter the season that had been nipping at our heels since Oslo.
Nord’s Well That Ends Well
Our journey continued north with Mo i Rana as our first stop, a town that, despite its wonderfully peculiar name, seems mostly to exist as a waypoint on route to somewhere else. We camped near yet another ski slope, a feature that was quickly becoming a recurring theme of our Norwegian voyage.
Fjord Fiesta
Our journey through Norway pressed on, with our spirits high but our wallets visibly wilting, as we descended into Geirangerfjord—a place that doesn’t politely introduce itself so much as throw its arms wide and yell, “Behold!”
