Latvia

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A great country!
Flew into Riga, the capital, on the 9th August and stayed for a few days in a awsome hostel, Fun Friendly Franks, based in the Old Town of Riga. It was a small city but the buildings were so amazing with paved streets and a great laid back feel about the place. The hostel was up 2 flights of well worn wooden stairs and it was a great place to meet other travellers. Every night the staff would round up anyone keen to head out for drinks, which usually seem to consist of me and 20 odd guys, and they would take us off to some of the great nightlife spots around the city.
The country has such a sad history with Russia then the Germans then again Russia occupying the country for over the last 50 years. More than one third of the population was either murdered (jews mainly) or shipped off to Siberia (general public and political 'criminals') and sentanced to 20 odd years of hard labour.
Some of the city sights included Doma laukums or the cathedral square, the Three Brothers (the oldest houses in the city), the castle, occupation museum, houses of blackheads, the freedom monument, central markets made out of WWI Zepplin hangers, St Petersburg church plus much more.
Spent one night out camping at jurmala, the nearby white sandy beach. The beach was well designed to the tourists who flock here with vollyball nets, changing rooms, deckchairs for hire and bars on the beach.
Next headed out with one friend, Daniel, to Sigulda which is a small wooden town at the edge of a national park. We arrived just as it was celebrating its 800th anniversity so there was quite large crowds around. We set up camp just out of town by the Gauja River in a beautiful woody area. Behind us was the olympic bobsled tracks which also ran a tourist summer version of a cart on wheels. It felt like we were going down so fast and you really hit the corners blind and flew up the walls. Was great fun. Spent the afternoon heading over to the Krimulda Palace by cable car which was nothing to amazing before spending the evening swimming in the river and relaxing and drinking with other campers.
After a morning of swimming and sunbathing Daniel decided he would take a turn at bunjee jumping off the cable car. Was classic to watch with quite a few people having a turn at it. We also discovered a ski lift behind our campsite with a one railed toboggan track to come back down on. Was great fun riding this and the days went too quickly.
Headed up by bus to Tallinn, Estonia on the 14th August.

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