First I must apologize for writing in English, as that is my only language. Second, my wife and I have just returned from a three and a half week driving trip of the Baltic states. It was mostly very enjoyable, always interesting and sometimes frustrating. I thought that I might give you some of my impressions as a Canadian traveling in your countries. I must say at the beginning, I am sickened by the brutality caused by the Nazis, and the years of cruelty and suppression of the Soviets.
Now to business. My wife and I have been in about 40 countries, so we have much travel experience. I suspect you have had relatively few North Americans visiting your countries, and I think it is important to understand what we look for when traveling. If I return home and don't give a favorable report, then our friends won't visit; they will go to Sweden, Poland, France etc. I do not expect Estonia to be just like Canada, but I hope for certain standards and treatment.
My present joke is, "in the Baltics, the customer is always wrong." This gets a laugh because the first rule of business is "the customer is always right." Service was not always bad, but it was poor on many occasions. So I think this concept must be continually stressed. We had a very rude woman at a guesthouse in Tallinn, so we would not recommend that place to a friend. On the other hand, many people in stores, restaurants, and on the streets were most helpful.
Here are my other points of concern:
1. Have street signs in the cities that can be read, specifically in Vilnius.
2. Try to teach the taxi drivers not to be highway robbers. We were charged seven lats in Riga for a trip that should have cost two lats. We never took a taxi again.
3. In my opinion, and my wife's, the hotel breakfasts were ghastly! In every place we had hard boiled eggs, terrible bread, cornflakes, cucumbers, tomatoes, wieners, and weak coffee. What about bacon and freshly fried eggs, omelets, poached or scrambled eggs? We would be willing to wait. There is also a huge variety of good cereals and granolas which would be appreciated.
4. Generally, the bread we had was not good. I know the black bread is traditional, but it was "blah" and the white bread was not worth eating. Both were usually stale. What the Baltics need are good bakeries, which turn out good breads (as in Italian, French, German, and North American). I am sure there is a huge business opportunity here for a lot of people. Look at http://www.cobsbread.com
5. We were in a number of good restaurants, and would have been in more if we could have afforded them. Nevertheless, we paid quite a lot of money for many bad meals, served by surly staff. I could eat only so many smoked flounders and dreadful pizzas! The Old Hansa restaurant in Tallinn was excellent both in food and service, as was the medieval Rosengrals in Riga. Often though, the food had quantity but not quality. (For example, asparagus was never served.) There are a million recipes on the Internet, (epicurean.com) and a million cook books out there. My suggestion is that in all three countries you have a morning cooking TV show aimed at professional chefs, and encourage them to watch it.
6. I want to talk briefly about one of the great foods- pizzas! It is hard to beat a good pizza and you can get them in many countries. Yet the ones we had in the Baltics were made from tasteless cheese, tomato ketchup, and wieners! Some good Italian or French salamis would have helped here. Check the Internet for good recipes. http://www.bestcookvideos.com/category/recipes/pizza-recipes/
7. We saw a lot of the countryside as we drove. I was surprised to see so few dairy and beef herds, and so much unused but cleared land. I am sure there is a reason for this of which I am not aware. Are many cheeses made in the Baltics?
8. Often a tourist site was listed in our Lonely Planet guide, but there was little or nothing there. I think there are many places of interest, but they must be developed and promoted carefully. Remember that most older tourists have money and are pretty wise about what they see and do. Unfortunately, we weren't "born yesterday." (We spent about $200 a day.)
So you may wonder, what did we like about the Baltic States? Many things. We liked the people, the Old Towns, the castles, the beer, the cider, the fresh cherries for sale, Rimi, Maxima, the beaches, much of the countryside, (but felt sorry for the poor old people in the poor villages). We liked the Curonian Spit, Ventspils, Sareema Island, Jurmala, and many other places in our 4,000 kilometer drive.
When you have read this, I hope that you will see it as constructive, not just another tourist complaining about what is different. I would also like to give your countries and their peoples our very best wishes for the future, after such a long dark night.
Ken Bryden,
West Vancouver, B.C.
Canada
