Blogs from Riga, Riga Region, Latvia, Europe - page 2

After our 4 day relaxation and ready to hit the road again so off we go to Latvia our first stop is Riga. I had never hear of it before we decided to see the Baltic Countries. So let me tell you our experience of Riga and what we thought of it. We were told that Riga was dirty with lots of graffiti, but what we found was something totally different and unexpected. What we found was a beautiful friendly old mixed with new city, with narrow streets and antique buildings. I love the pedestrian-only old town makes it easy to walk around without the concern of buses, cars and trucks and poop in and out of the many shops and stop for a beer at one of it's many little street pubs. We chose to ... read more

Chose promise, chose due... voici mon petit crapaud qui vous chante sa berceuse... etc... https://youtu.be/LbWIMSL8H2s Riga est la plus grande ville des États baltes mais sa population (les Riganais ou Rigois) continue de décroître rapidement. Le déclin démographique est particulièrement évident depuis 1991 avec le départ de nombreux russophones en raison du positionnement politique letton jusqu'en 1998 (nouvelles lois sur la naturalisation), et l'incapacité du pays à augmenter son taux de fécondité. Cependant, la ville connaît un fort taux d'immigration interne au pays qui n'est pas répercuté dans les chiffres à cause du système d'enregistrement qui est une démarche personnelle que beaucoup ne font pas. Nous n'avions pas beaucoup de renseignements sur cette ville et seulement un p... read more

That was the only advice we got before we were flung down the icy tunnel in a “bobsleigh” that looked like it had been knocked up in someone’s garage. There were no other warnings, no training, no disclaimers to sign, “it is for five people, you are six, no problem we will squeeze you in”. The image I’d had before arrival of donning a lycra suit and sprinting down the ice track in spiky shoes before jumping in then carefully navigating the streamlined craft around the twists and turns were far off the mark. Turn up, get given a helmet, sit down in the padded coffin, off you go. They said with five people in it goes 80 km/h so with six I’m going to say 90-100 km/h. Certainly fast enough for us to bounce off ... read more

Bremen – Riga: Ryanair £27 I showed the old geezer in the driving seat the address of my hotel and he nodded. Off we set. As we left the airport perimeter, I tried to engage him in conversation. “No English,” he barked. I nodded, irritated by his casual rebuke. Maybe it was because he was sick of Englishmen visiting his city and causing trouble. I couldn’t blame him if that was the reason. Ever since low cost airlines had invaded Riga, young Brits had flocked to the Baltics. In 2008, things came to a head when the Latvian interior minister described British tourists as ‘dirty, hoggish people’. His comment followed the arrest of a drunken 34-year old British man caught urinating on Latvia’s most revered memorial – the Freedom Monument. The taxi hit a ... read more

Saturday 11 July: Igor picked us up at 9:15 to take us to the bus station so that gave us plenty of time to get ourselves packed and organised. We got to the bus station with time to spare and the bus was away close enough to on time. We had been pre-warned that there were extensive road-works on the main highway in Latvia so there would be about half an hour added to the journey. The bus wasn’t very full and was pretty well equipped. We headed south through the Estonian countryside, stopping after just under two hours at Pärnu. The bus filled up here and a group sat in front of us and in the vacant seat next to Heather. Unfortunately they didn’t seem to be acquainted with deodorant. We soon crossed the border ... read more