How are you guys doing today?
Now I am sharing to you about my experience of crossing borders between Lithuania and Latvia (Eastern EU countries) for the first time by my own car.
It was a snowy Thursday and our trip started from 9:00am morning in Siauliai city of Lithuania. We drove around 10 minutes from our home to famous Holy Cross Hill - a UNESCO approved attraction of Lithuania. We are Catholics, so we feel like we must visit this sight to pray for a new year!
The Cross Hill photo from my instant camera last summer
The road was kindly slippery because of snow and ice. So I could not drive fast as the law permits. First stop at the Hill of Crosses was very quickly, just 5 mins of praying. Then we drove back to main road and headed to Joniskis border town of Lithuania for filling up the fuel of my car.
My partner at the entrance of the Cross Hill attraction
From Joniskis town, we drove 01 hour 38 mins to reach the Lithuania - Latvia border, this is the first time we crossed the borders by our own car, so it was a bit nervous but actually no stop or border check at all. We only saw a small cabinet and a custom police car at the border. It surprised us how easy to cross border in EU. Why? Because when we fly or travel by bus in EU or from a country to another country, there are always border checks to make sure you have EU permits or visa to enter the country. Not this time 😆 !
crossing the border from Lithuania to Latvia
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only the border police van at the border cross point of Lithuania - Latvia
The roads were mostly nice and not too bad but there were a section of highway very bad to drive even we drove its forced limit "50" (50km/h). The usual speed limit on highway in winter of EU is 90km/h and there are some sections of limit "70".
After nearly 01 hour from the border, we arrived Riga - the capital city of Latvia. We stopped at IKEA store to have lunch and did some small shopping for our apartment. Oops, I forgot to mention that we were travelling with our mini dog named CHIA 😅 🐕 . She slept all the time in my partner's lap while I was driving. Maybe she did wake up a bit to watch the snowing on the road 😝 .
CHIA loves wearing santa suit while travelling even no more Christmas 😂
Arrived at IKEA around 12:30pm, unlike pet-friendly Lithuanian IKEA store, IKEA store in Latvia did not let us bring CHIA (in a carriage) in. Thus, no choice, we had to put Chia safely in our unzipped backpack and made our way in by another gate of the store. We recommend not to break the store regulations like us 😝 😝.
We started to drive back home at 3:30pm because we were afraid of driving in the dark. In winter of Lithuania, the sun sets around 4:45pm and the sky goes dark quickly around 5:00pm. When we were driving back to Lithuania, due to heavily snow from Latvia side, I could not drive at its speed limit 90km/h. At the border from Latvia to Lithuania, we saw more custom guards than Latvia side. Some cars were stopped to be checked but not ours. Hence, we drove non-stop 02 hours 20 mins and arrived home safely.
Heavy snow on the road driving back to Lithuania from Latvia
It was a nice experience of driving our own car crossing the border of two EU countries. Maybe next time we will do a road trip to Germany on our own car. Let see! 😉
Thank you for your reading and I hope you enjoy my trip story.
