Riga

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I had wanted to go to Latvia since I heard about the KGB Prison in Karosta long time ago, and it has the fusion architectural charms of old Russia, and the modern Scandinavia. Riga is a very small and beautiful city, and it was good value of money. Riga is also the city feeling more of that Soviet Republic than other Baltic cities.

The flight from Istanbul to Riga took us less than 3 hours and we touched down just before the dark. Going through immigration, and officers complete with Soviet style uniforms, we entered the modernized airport lounge, and again given a little bit of difficult times of explaining the difference between PRC and HKSAR (Reason is PRC Passport holders do need a Visa and HKSAR do not) and they still could not tell the difference between these two with the same Great Wall symbol at the front page of the Passport.

We caught the airport bus into the city centre and checked into our Hostel - Riga Backpackers Hostel. The hostel was great - right near the centre of the old town,conveniently walk to all famous attaction within the city, Lat 5 (US$10) gave us a well stocked mini bar and common room, complimentary internet and curfew free, made it almost luxurious. Although I did save some money (and that was alot cheapesr than I expected) but the staffs, espeically the one at night, was not so friendly.

The most and majority atractions and old building are concerntrated in Old Riga, most streets in the Old city are narrow and cobbled. However, the city is alot better than what I have expected, with people on the streets are full of charm, well spoken in English and Russian, and this is no doubt that Riga has been voted the Best Cultural European City in 2009, with less than 800,000 habitats in the city, Riga has so much to see and it's one of the best base to explore The Baltics.

Despite the long darkless sky, when sun rises at 3:00am and goes down at 12 mid night, we enjoyed and longest day in the city. We explored the bottle shops, and very true that the Latvians love alcoholic drinks, you can find so many decent brand of Russian Vodka , the local Latvian drink "Balzams", it's very weird when drunk neat, but combines it with soft drinks, I am sure this rather well.

I am sure Latvia still plenty more to explore about, but that is going to have to be some other time in the future.

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