Summer Holidays and no misery!!!
The Summer!
This is a long one so get comfortable and off we go.....
Full of new iron and up to running 4 minutes (FOUR!) at a time for the first time since Oct 2024 I set off to Helsinki in fine fettle. The last chance for a while to be fit and healthy before the nose laser treatment and the fifth ablation (eye roll emoji!).
Helsinki was nice but there’s not much there. I think if you have a car and can explore the islands of the Finnish archipelago it would be lovely though. Weather varied from wet and 13˚ right up to sunny and 21 ˚. We had three nights in a little apartment. Last year, when we had to cancel due to me being in hospital for so long (see Aug 2025) we had booked to sail with Viking Ferries to Estonia. This year I could not find their website and so booked with Tallink. Their terminal was not near to our hotel as marked on Google (that was the cargo port) but a long tram ride away which was a pain. Just to rub salt into the wound the Viking terminal was literally five mins walk from the hotel if not less – every day we could see the caravans and motorbikes and foot passengers making their way to board, just to rub salt in that wound!
Tallinn, Estonia had a very, modern, European vibe – a beautiful little fairytale city perched on a hill (we got very lost in its cobbled streets) surrounded by modern buildings - one of which was our very nice hotel. We had five days there and apart from sightseeing we also had days out at the beach and on one of its islands in the lovely Baltic Sea. And, to my OH’s delight – we got to visit a real BOG! In fact, we even walked over a bog on a floating boardwalk!
We then travelled by bus to a little seaside town called Pärnu. Gem of a town with wooden
houses and then a big sandy beach – we walked and hired bikes and it was great. Real nice friendly atmosphere.
Four days later we had a big bus hop into Latvia and its capital, Riga. Much bigger and more bustling. Plus, lots of tourists doing Stag does and the like. But still very lovely and we had a great room in an old convent. We twice went to the gorgeous beach at Jūmala plus a lovely day out at the “Switzerland of Latvia”, Sigulda. It was more Wye Valley than Switzerland, but very beautiful and good hiking – in fact, it was surprisingly tough hiking given that all the ups were accomplished by huge wooden staircases – I think the last one we climbed back to the train station was over 600 big steps. I was still struggling with my breathing, but I thought it was caused by my stomach being so distended and also by being so unfit.
Five days later we moved to Vilnius in Lithuania – long journey by bus and it looked a bit of a dump when we came out of the station. I need to remember that all cities look a dump near the bus station/train station! But it was a gem! Again, we were in a convent – tiny room and no aircon and, of course, this was the few days where it rose to 31˚.
Vilnius felt much less touristy and we wished we had arranged to stay there longer than our three days. We did manage a day out to Trakai Castle before returning home completely exhausted having done an average of 8.5 miles of walking per day (plus cycled over 42 miles, more than I have done on a normal bike since 2021 – heavy Sit-up-and-beg style bikes too!!).
(The only fly in the ointment was the fact that the blood tests I had taken once I was back home were so bad that I was once again anaemic – despite the fact that I had been taking my oral iron on top of the infusion. Despite the HHT nosebleeds, this has always been enough to hold my blood count in equilibrium. The bleeds are only marginally worse, but my blood figures are terrible. My transferrin Saturation result had doubled to 14% but, for me, should be 28%)! But this is a happy holiday saga so we shall leave this tale to next time….)
We had nine days at home, thinking of where to go next. Britain? – too hot and dry, Southern Europe? – far too hot. Anywhere by plane? – could not face an airport again. What a great First World problem to have, though.
Eventually, we drove to Dover and caught the ferry to Calais. Travelling by ferry is so civilised compared to flying – fresh air, space to move, comfortable chairs, even nice food!
As usual, we had forgotten how huge France is and ended up with a far too long drive to Evreux. Our Best Western hotel was meant to be 600m from the town centre – it was actually more like triple that. But Evreux was a real delight and surprise with its rivers and floral displays and a huge, really impressive cathedral.
Our main purpose of staying there was as a setting off point to go and see Chartres Cathedral, which we duly did. Like so many people I had wanted to see it since reading Ken Follett’s “Pillars of the Earth”. It was magnificent, but overall, I definitely preferred Evreux.
After three nights there we went to the coast via a stop at lovely Château de Rambures. Great place with minimal Health and Safety (The European countries really do not feel the need to smother every uneven step or rocky area with ugly warning signs, so refreshing – National Trust please take note!).
We had a gorgeous apartment at an ugly, scruffy little town called Berck-sur-Mer. Berck had been extensively bombed, by the Allies, in WWII and had the look of somewhere rebuilt in a hurry, as I'm sure it was. To our surprise we also discovered we were not in Normandy as we had thought, but in the neighbouring region of Haut-France! I told you we were always amazed by the size of France!
Somewhat demoralised that we had booked a week in this disappointing place, we immediately set out for the beach which was only 300m away. The beach is HUGE! 12 km long and 250m wide at high tide – all fine, golden sand. At low tide many sandbanks are exposed and it just stretches for miles. Confusingly, given it is the north coast of France, Berck faced West and so we got some spectacular sunsets. AND just under a mile south there is a large colony of common and grey seals who come ashore to bask on the sandbanks exposed at high tide, separated from nasty humans by deep channels of water. There is the remarkable sight of several hundred people staring at the seals who stare back at them!
Berck actually turned out to be great – lovely prom, nice restaurants offering everything from French formules to kebabs. Really friendly, family atmosphere and miles of walking on THAT beach. After four days we were exhausted again (this was meant to be our R&R holiday – we are just not very good at Rest and Relaxation, though we did spend some a few late afternoons in our apartment reading and lazing). So, as a rest, we had a day at the ‘posh’ resort of Le Touquet (over-rated) and the little port of Etaples. My great-grandfather is buried in the Miliary Ceremony there and I have visited him at least four times previously, but this time we also visited the little town and walked along the river.
I was very exhausted and struggling to breathe on a diet of gorgeous French bread for breakfast and lunch (and sometimes with dinner too!). So, for the final day we hired BIG heavy electric City bikes. The man said the batteries would not take us to Fort Mahon (he pronounced it more like Foh-Maho) and back on the highest setting, but that we should not need that. He was not kidding – the motors on these were like jet engines – we rode all the way there and back on level 1 (from 5) without really doing very much – though I did feel it in my atrophied leg muscles! Cycle tracks all the way, including a purpose-built cycle/pedestrian/horse-only bridge to cross the Authie river! 27 Miles!
The French really seem to have life sorted – they are richer than us, have an almost Mediterranean life-style, retire early, but have higher productivity and have a truly beautiful country. Plus, they are super nice and friendly even when I was badly mangling their lovely language. Great! (I’m sure there are problems, but if so, I wish to ignore them!)
I’m such a lucky person to have had these great experiences and I hope you enjoyed sharing them.
Best wishes
Your HHT and AFib and SIBO and SCAD athlete!!!!!
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If you want to know more about the Baltic States here’s a piece I wrote for our local village magazine:
The Baltic States
I had various pre-conceived ideas about the Baltic States before I was lucky enough to (finally) get there this summer:
Three tiny little countries, formed after World War I, annexed by Stalin in the 1920s, stretching East to West along the Baltic Sea and being so alike in religion, language, flora and fauna that they are like a set of triplets.
WRONG! The bit as far as Stalin was correct, but they actually stetch North to South! This means, geographically, their landscape is completely different. Estonia is like Finland – bogs, lakes and many dark, dense coniferous forests. To the South, Latvia becomes less foresty with some patches of farmland. South again and Lithuania is hillier and mainly agricultural.
Religion – All are predominately Christian countries (although adherence is very low, following years of Soviet suppression of religions).
Latvia is the same, but Lithuania is Catholic and Orthodox.
Estonia has about 18.5% of its people as Russian or Russian-speaking; Latvia a huge 24.5% but Lithuania only 5.5%. Probably explains the lack of Orthodox churches in the latter.
Language – Estonian is an Uralic language belonging to the Finno-Ugric branch which also includes Finnish and Hungarian. In real terms this means it is completely unintelligible to Latin-based or Germanic-based or Slavic-based speakers! However, Finns can understand about half of Estonian – enough to get by, apparently! Whereas Lithuania and Latvia are both Slavic languages.
One thing they do share is beautiful coasts – Estonia’s are mainly lined with reeds, but there are some lovely sandy beaches; Latvia and Lithuania had lovely sandy beaches too. As we were there during the heatwave (37˚ in Blighty) we had temperatures from 18 - 31˚, but usually a balmy 25˚. Perfect for those of us who cannot tolerate the sun or heat!
Size-wise, Estonia is the smallest (18.5% of UK size); then Latvia (26.5%) and Lithuania (27%).
Cycling back, I saw a furry thing on the cycle path, basking in the sun. I couldn’t decide whether it was a furry dog or a very fat cat. As it ran away, we saw it was a completely unrecognisable mammal. Later research revealed it to be a Racoon Dog!
Despite its name it is neither a Racoon nor a Dog, but is actually related to the fox family. Seems these are from Asia and were escapees from the fur trade. To be honest, it looked a big manky. Seems some people keep them as pets, but they never become very domesticated and are now illegal in the UK.
The Capitals – we were mainly based in the capitals and they were all lovely. Tallinn is a fairytale town on a hill, surrounded by modern buildings and a very modern and Finnish vibe.
Riga, Latvia is the party town – lively and very touristy.
Vilnius, Lithuania is much less ‘international’ feeling – it felt very Lithuanian and seemed very proud to be so.
To sum up, we loved them all, it was really interesting. People were friendly and spoke excellent English. As for a favourite – well, I did have one, but as with three children I could not possibly say it out loud!
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