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Published: October 1st 2007
A Sausage fest
I took this photo for you Lyn.Well, let us see.....Riga is very different from Tallin. Not quite as Disneyland pretty, plenty of beautiful art nouveau buildings (lots of them by the famous Russian Mikhail Eisenstein) and its fair share of cobbled windy streets....streets you have to watch where you walk.. They are so pot-holed that you are highly likely to twist your ankle or just plain fall over while you have your eyes and neck stretched to the skies looking at the beautiful buildings!!
Although nice things to look at...we did see some seriously dodgy looking people and far more than a few hobos and drunkards....
..........seriously scarey rough looking Latvians/Russians!
At one point we saw a good four or five of the starting to fight, we assumed swearing and cursing (our Latvian and Russian obviously is zero , but they were quite obviously not discussing the weather!), 3 of them had huge pitt-bull terrier like dogs and of course there I was mouth gaping open.
Poor Ken had visions of them coming over and picking a fight with us and poor him trying to protect me.....
All I heard from him was "don't you dare look at them....keep walking! and for goodness sake close
The wedding lock
It is a Latvian tradition to place a lock on a bridge when you get married, with the wedding couples names engraved on it. your mouth!!'' Needless to say, he did not have to even look in my direction to know that was exactly what I was doing!!!!
We stayed at a great hostel called Argonauts. It had a great location and was incredibly organised. Great security- they had these credit cards that gave you access to the building and then gave you access to the particular room you were staying in. We were in a 4 bedded dorm , so that meant that the only people that had access to the room were the 4 sleeping in the room. Really nice because you often need to be careful with your stuff and keep checking the bags etc are locked as so many people wander around and you don't normally know if they are staying at the hostel or not...
We met great people, went on a wicked bar crawl- and for 6LATS (6 pounds) all you could drink beer/cider and vodka shots!
It is amazing how a great hostel can make your stay. Everyone was so friendly and generally just nice people. Both Ken and I are finding that we are missing the laid back vibe of our last trip in
Jack Daniels Bar
Heaven I'm in heaven Central&South America. Here in Europe it is all about getting to the next place, not so much about the journey there. Then of course, there are just so many places to go, far too many options!! Not like the 'Gringo trail' where it was highly probable that you would keep bumping into the same people further down the road!
By the way the people in Riga seem to not like the British stag party crowd. In fact they are down right rude to some and if the guys get too drunk and noisy, more often then not they are not even accepted into the bar/clubs. Many hostels will not take big group bookings if they are all men or woman. It is sad, but I think a few too many badly behaved stag parties have ruined it for others......
We went to an incredible buffet type restaurant called the Lido. Seriously good valued food and at great prices. It was place where you helped yourself and point to food (not really knowing what it was because everything is in Latvian) that looked good and then the servers would dish it up....then at the end of the line was
Bar/restaurant called John Lemons
A great place, cheap but good food. the cash till where you would pay for exactly what was on your tray. Going to one of these is a must if you are in Latvia (apparently there are lots of them around)....a great culinary experience!
We were really lazy in Riga, just relaxed and socialized more than anything......then after 2 days off to Lithuania
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Lyn
non-member comment
Great line up of "wors"
Thanks for that Ken, Sounds like you to are eating and drinking more than looking and seeing! My kind of holiday already! Enjoy! Love, Lyn