Most Inspirational Moment
Spending a day in Riga, seeing a wild beaver in the city park, the amazing architecture and the site of the very first Christmas tree. Witches Hill was also impressive.
Thoughts on Group Leader
Very friendly, knowledgeable, sociable and eager to please and support the group.
Advice for Potential Travellers
Apparently Lithuania translates as Land of the Rain and it certainly lived up to its name, perhaps we were unfortunate with the weather but definitely bring your wet weather gear.
Also the currency in Latvia is the Euro and not the Latvian Lat as the trip notes state (Estonia and Latvia have the Euro and Lithuania still has Litas - though they too are scheduled to move to the Euro in 2015)
Suggestions
A review in Nov13 mentioned the poor quality of the bikes, this has not changed as the bikes were basically city bikes and not really suitable for the trip. We had quite a few breakdowns including one where the handlebars came loose as someone was cycling down a hill (no serious injury though just cuts), Thankfully we had quite a few people on the trip capable of fixing bikes, which kept us up and running but having better bikes would definitely improve the trip.
Also a review in Aug13 mentioned that as you are approaching Klaipeda you use a cycle track which is fast but a post has been broken off leaving about three inches protruding in the middle of the track. This is still there and dangerous, so make sure you look out for it.
In terms of lunches, despite what the trip notes say no packed lunches were available from the hotels, which meant that we stopped every day apart from one at a café/restaurant for lunch. As we were a group of 15 (including the leader) this took a long time (our fastest lunch stop was 1hr 15mins) and meant that we often arrived at places too late to visit the sites. Buying your own food from a supermarket and stopping for a picnic, if an option, would speed things up considerably.
All of that said I had a good holiday and haven't laughed so much for ages, definitely try the Kibinai in Trakai (basically a pasty but very tasty) but be wary of the potato zepplins (unbelievable stodge).
![Review Centre]()
Reply from Exodus
We’re glad that Grad enjoyed his cycling trip overall, but are sorry that he didn’t feel the bikes provided were the most suitable. We have been using traditional European upright bikes for this trip which, whilst we agree may be a bit heavy, we have generally found to be suitable for the flat terrain. We are, however, looking into the bikes used on this trip. An Exodus staff member has recently joined a departure of this trip and has subsequently made recommendations about lunch stops and suggested improvements for the trip notes which we hope will benefit future clients.
David Sear – Product Manager for the Baltics
