Page 369 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Estonia Latvia & Lithuania

PRA C TICAL INFORM A TION 367

footwear is recommended for
walking on the cobbled streets
of Rīga and Tallinn.

Travelling with Children
The Baltic States are extremely
child-friendly. Most parks have
play areas and some even have
a range of distrac tions, such as
bouncy toy castles and
trampolines. Many traditional-
style taverns and ethnographic
museums also provide some
wonderfully old-fashioned play
apparatus for children. Some
hotels offer childcare facilities.
For information on eating out Children playing at the Seaside Open-Air Museum (see p181), Ventspils, Latvia
with children, see pages 308–9.
places due to the extremely closer to Finnish. German is quite
narrow streets and pavements. commonly spoken as a second
Disabled Travellers
Public transport is another language in all three Baltic States,
Although there has been a major obstacle as trams, while virtually everybody is
significant improvement in trolleybuses and fluent in Russian. However,
recent years, Estonia, Latvia trains do not communi cating in English
and Lithuania do not provide provide wheel chair in the capital cities is
many facilities for disabled access in Tallinn and seldom a problem –
people. Most of the new Rīga, and only a very most people speak
upmarket hotels and limited number of it to some extent.
restaurants have taken buses do. The Knowledge of
disabled travellers’ needs situation is better in English is less wide-
into consideration, but such Vilnius, where a large spread in rural areas.
places are few and far number of buses and Signpost at For common words and
between. Owing to their trolleybuses have access Limbaži, Latvia phrases used in the three
historic structure, the Old for disabled people. For languages, refer to the
Towns of the three capital information on access for Phrase Book on pages 411–16.
cities are extremely difficult for disabled travellers in hotels,
disabled people to nego tiate. see page 295.
In Tallinn, there are several Measures and
steep, winding cobble stoned Electrical Appliances
streets, and Rīga’s Old Town is Language The Baltic States all use the
also predominantly cobbled. Both Latvian and Lithuanian metric system. The mains
Although very little of Vilnius’s belong to the Baltic family of voltage is 230 volts in Estonia
Old Town is cobbled, it is still languages. Estonians speak a and Lithuania and 220 volts in
difficult to get around in many Finno-Ugric dialect, which is Latvia. Standard Continental
European two-pin plugs are
used. Although UK plug adapt-
ers are available, they are not
easy to find, so it is advisable to
bring any necessary adapters
with you.

Local Time
The clocks of the Baltic States
are set to Eastern European
Standard Time and are two
hours ahead of Greenwich
Mean Time (GMT+2) and seven
hours ahead of Eastern Standard
Time (EST+7). Clocks go forward
one hour on the last Sunday in
March and go back one hour on
The cobbled Viru Street in Tallinn’s Old Town the last Sunday in October.