RIGA

Last weeks post was written on a plane to Riga.

As it turned out we knew another couple -let's call them Mr and Mrs Cymru - who were, by pure coincidence, also travelling to Riga on the same flight as us!

BTW for all non-Welsh speakers Cymru (meaning Welsh) is roughly pronounced coomree.

We were chatting at the gate waiting to board. Mrs A is a BA silver member (woooo) so we were in boarding group 2. We were called to board, which actually meant we joined a queue. After standing there for a few minutes, we were overtaken by Mr & Mrs C who were called after us and ended up on board before us - so much for BA Silver!

Immigration at Riga was sloooow. Instead of one queue that feeds several border guards there was a queue for each.

Signs warned us to have proof of our accommodation and travel insurance ready, which I found on my phone and had at the ready.

We were second in the queue when we seemed to stop moving. Theguards were checking single men very carefully and we must have had a dodgy one just in front of us. Gradually all the people at the back of our queue gradually jumped on to the back of another queue, but you can’t give up second place to join the back of another queue can you? You’d look a right chump if your queue starts moving again and you’re now at the back somewhere else!

It was getting ridiculous. I had visions of the cleaners sweeping up around us and the lights turning off, with us still standing waiting and half expecting my phone battery to die before we got there, leaving me with no proof of said evidence.

Then our guard after 10 minutes of grilling this guy, left her booth and took the itinerant traveller of to a side room for waterboarding or something, leaving us still standing there.

At this point all the other queues had nearly cleared so we did give up that place to join another queue where we encountered a fearsome young woman guard. As our turn finally came and we approached, she barked ONLY ONE!

Mrs A was having none of this and gesturing at me said “My husband” and the unsmiling iron maiden begrudgingly relented.

Fortunately our taxi driver hadn’t abandoned us and the rest of the journey to our hotel was uneventful. Here’s the view from our room:

Fortunately the storm blew itself out overnight and the weather for the rest of our trip was glorious.

Riga is a fab place!

The Latvians speak good English as well as Latvian and /or Russian. There are Ukrainian flags everywhere alongside their own and several museums about the Russian occupation. It’s clear they don’t want that again!

Once we evenutally figured out how to buy bus tickets, it was easy to get around on the excellent bus and tram system. €8 buys a three day ticket and we made good use of them.

These are some of the highlights:

• open air museum with reconstructed wooden houses from 1800s or older

• the KGB museum - grim

• huge indoor markets in the old Zeppelin hangars - lots of fish, veg etc

• Art nouveau walk & museum

• a boat trip

• a ballet (Swan lake)

• an organ recital

• a very nice meal with Mr & Mrs Cymru

• admiring the architecture

• sculptures all over the place

• climbing to the top of the church spire (well, OK - we went in a lift, but we did have to climb a couple of flights of stairs to get to the lift)

Not bad in 4 days.

Without boring you with too many details we had a wonderful time and we highly recommend Riga for a long weekend.

And there was this trying to get in our room:

The flight back didn’t leave Riga until the evening, so we had the full day on Tuesday to enjoy more of the same. our flight was slightly delayed and we got back at about 1am.

All told a great weekend!

That’s it for this week.

have a good ‘un

Jerry