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Latvia

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Off we go - September 19th Heading east this time to Latvia to tie-up the Baltic states on the very impressive Air Baltic Airbus A220-300 complete with free Starlink wifi and generous seat pitch. It made the flight to Riga very pleasant. Picking up the hire-car was straight forward and with the airport located west of Riga, heading off on the two-and-a-half hour drive to Kolka was gratefully uneventful, and largely traffic free. The weather was cooler than that of the UK but it was still very mild and with a moderate south-westerly, I was anticipating that the search for migrant birds was going to be challenging. And that's how it transpired, across the four-night stay, a total haul of 71 species was fairly modest with a few interesting sightings along the way. Kolka - 20th September A lovely place but birdwise it was very quiet. That however was the least of my problems. The mosquitoes were my problem. And there were loads of them. Everywhere. Munching on any patch of exposed skin...
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San Marino

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Across the decades, it has been difficult to separate San Marino with Formula One. As a passive fan of the F1 circus, memories are inevitably drawn to the tragic grand prix weekend of 1994 at Imola that saw the lives of Roland Ratzenburger and the late great Ayrton Senna perish during a long period where the sport was perilously dangerous and where the safety of drivers were inevitably compromised for entertainment. No one remembers the Rubens Barrichello crash either that could so easily have gone the same way. And so, those events have been inextricably linked to the country itself. It's taken me until now to visit this small autonomous country located an hour bus ride from the coastal town of Rimini.  From there, a two-Euro bus heads straight into the city where the search for the Tabacconist commenced from where the San Marino bus tickets are procured. Short of whispering 'Roberto sent me' to the shop attendant, it all felt very covert and a peculiar vendor to purchase ...
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