Old Town Charming ,authentic.The ethnological museum is worth a visit.Buildings, constructed after the fire,amazing replica of the city ,before the fire,managed to restore every detail. Architecture is amazing,a beautiful city charged with history! [View Full Entry]

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As we settle into the seats on our ‘cheap as chips’ flight bound for Riga, the pilot makes his welcome-on-board announcement, ‘good morning ladies and gentlemen, today we’ll be flying over Norwich, Amsterdam then on to… Bratislava!!’ We have a bit of a laugh then consider the ramifications of actually ending up in Slovakia. So we check with the air steward who relays a message to the pilot. The second announcement comes over the loud speaker, ‘For those of you who were actually listening at this early hour of the morning, we are bound today for Rig [View Full Entry]

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Fallen city lies in ruins Left behind to perish alone Nobody remembers these houses But the houses remember them all. [View Full Entry]

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In Peterhof, a beautiful palace outside St. Petersburg, Russia, there are fountains that spray people when they step on stones. They appear to be random and automatic, but are in fact operated by a bored looking teenager, sitting on a bench, and pressing his foot down on a pedal. We've only seen one squirrel in the last month, in the gardens at Peterhof, St. Petersburg, and it was red! In Russia, the mullet hair cut is alive and well; I think we counted close to 25 in one day. The women in Russia are known for wearing high heeled shoes. They [View Full Entry]

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Oh dear. As 'regular readers' may have noticed, its been some time since we updated the blog. There is a valid excuse...apologies in advance for the lengthiness of this torrid tale. So as our bus to Klaipeda, a Lithianian coastal town, wasn't until quarter to eight in the evening, we decided to spend some time browsing round the uber-retro shop in the Hotel Fontaine. Full of soviet-era trinkets and dubious second hand baseball jackets, we predictably became rather enthralled. Having checked out of uncle toms cabin, our luggage was downstairs in the breakfast/common/eighties record room, qui [View Full Entry]

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Venta Falls Got up in the morning and headed out to the nearby pastry shop to stock up with lots of delicious goodies, actually considering setting up an export business purchasing these amazing bites for less than 20p and selling them to the desperate foolish british public for about two pounds, they'd still be amazing value at that. After monching down some of the aforementioned tasty goods we headed to the bus station to practice our best latvian and purchase a ticket to the provincial town of Kuldiga, home to the Ventas Rumbas - the widest waterfall in Europe at around [View Full Entry]

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Rainy Times In the morning we headed into town for some more pastry loving and to make the trip to the tourist information office to get some idea of how to reach Liepaja. With the next bus at 3pm we had a bit of time to waste and inventively did so by drinking copious amounts of coffee and a lunchtime beer. Cautious of the fact we had no idea where the bus station was we headed off early and eventually found it hidden down a side road next to a field. The bus arrived and after the drivers obligatory cigarette break [View Full Entry]

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Happy with our flying visit to Parnu, we boarded the evening bus to Riga and promptly fell asleep, only to be woken by the terror-inducing braking of the driver! Apparently latvia has one of the worst records for road accidents in europe...the journey provided much evidence to that effect. Arrived unscathed and eventually found the hostel, which is actually hidden behind a bookcase in a bar, probably the best entrance ever. Quite tired and hungry so we went to eat at a self-service pub, lovely and cheap but made the schoolboy error of sitting underneath the air conditioning. Monched down our [View Full Entry]

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Very, very early this morning (5 AM), we took a plane from Israel to Riga, Latvia. Before I talk about Riga, I wanted to sum up my Israel experience, which I didn't get to do. Well, it was a great visit, one of my best. It was extra special because of my brother's wedding, and because I got to show Erin the country of my birth, that I have told her so much about. We both really enjoyed our 12 days there. Some of our highlights were visiting the Old City of Jerusalem, the night market in Tiberias, floating in the [View Full Entry]

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Riga’dan trenle çok yakın olan Jurmala'ya geldiğimizde sanki yeni bir ülkeye gelmiş gibi hissettik. Sokak isimlerinde kullanılan dil Rusça’ydı, hatta şehrin bir kısmında tabelalardaki sokak kelimesi bile Rusça yazılmıştı, sokaklarda dolaşan insanların büyük kısmı Rus’tu. Otele gitmek için minibüs beklerken durakta yaşlı bir kadın bizimle konuşmaya başladı. Daha doğrusu bize kendince bir şeyler anlatmaya başladı. Rusça konuşan ama birkaç k [View Full Entry]

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