My wife and I hired Edgar of Riga Taxi Tours to drive us from Riga to Vilnius, stopping at points of interest along the way. We were especially interested in stopping in the Lithuanian village of Žagarė, near the Latvian border, because that was where my grandfather was born. We also wanted to stop in Kaunas, the home of two of my great-grandparents. In our initial email exchanges with Edgar, we suggested stops at the Rundale estate, the Tervete nature park, Žagarė, and Kaunas, ending at our hotel in Vilnius. He said that this itinerary would take too many hours of driving time. He suggested that we spend a night in Kaunas and continue to Vilnius in the next day. We countered with a plan that cut out Rundale and ended in Vilnius, and he agreed to this.
On the appointed day, Edgar met us outside our Riga hotel in his Volkswagen Golf. We loaded our luggage and set out. We held a running conversation with Edgar about where we were and about life in Latvia during Soviet times and after independence. The countryside looks much like the American Midwest: flat, with farm fields broken by groves of trees. The trees are different (mostly birches), and they style of houses are as well, but the general form is familiar. As we drove along, Edgar said that we would first go to Tervete and then Žagarė, before doubling back to Rundale. But wait—hadn’t we decided that Rundale would be too much? Well, he didn’t have anything planned for tomorrow, and didn’t mind some extra driving.
For the sake of brevity, I won’t describe the sites we visited in detail. We spend about two hours in Tervete, while Edgar waited for us in the car. Then we headed for Žagarė. Žagarė is just a little town, not a tourist destination. We stood in front of the cultural center and had Edgar take our picture. Then we had a look at the village church and looked through the cemetery, in hopes of spotting my grandfather’s family name (no luck). While we were doing that, Edgar had gone online and found that there was a manor house nearby that was now open to the public. We stopped there and got an idea of what life was like for the local gentry (which my grandfather certainly was not). All that took another two or three hours. Then we set off for Rundale, some two hours away.
Rundale is a grand palace with gardens, patterned after Versailles, but smaller. We toured the house and gardens. While we didn’t rush, neither did we take it slow. It being a large place, one must spend some time to make the visit worthwhile. Then we returned to the Edgar in the Golf and set out for the 4-hour trip to Kaunas. It was a day of mixed sun and rain. There was quite a lot of traffic on the main highway, including a surprising number of tractor-trailers with Polish license plates.
By the time we arrived in Kaunas, it was quite late in the day. We briefly stopped at Kaunas Castle and at the cathedral in the center of town. Then we set off again for Vilnius, another long drive with traffic steadily building as we approached the city.
By the time we arrived at our hotel, it was 8:30 PM. Thus, we had been on the road for twelve and a half hours. We had not stopped for lunch, getting by with Clif Bars. Needless to say, we were exhausted from such a busy day.
Edgar is a good conversationalist and a good driver. We learned quite a bit over the course of our half-day adventure. However, he is apt to let his enthusiasm get away with him. You will certainly get value for money, but take care that he doesn’t load up your itinerary with extra stops. Know your own limits, and don’t be afraid to say “no.”