Blogs from Latvia, Europe - page 36

arrived in the night, riga airport. cold. had no Lat money... a young guy payed for my bus trip. got out after the great stone bridge...as i had checked out the hostel street in the internet. night, nobdy on the street. "ding dong" who is it? "i want to get a room please" we are full...go away. i wandered for 10 minutes, entered a cafe and the barman showed me the way to another hostel. ....................sleep 15 hours..................... RIGA laundry_gertrudes iela my first latvian word was "prachechnaya" , the place where to wash my dirty clothes. Half the people have no problems speaking to strangers...the other half has serious problems in comunicating with strangers. finaly - the prachechnaya. riga is beautiful, under the sun. Milda girl, holding those three stars up high...beautiful women, all dressed up, ... read more

Hey Everyone, We arrived here in Latvia last night with a bit of a bumpy landing in a snow storm! We managed to get lost already trying to find the hostel because we got off of the bus way too early but we found a Latvian couple who we followed round loads of little streets with all of our stuff to a tram stop which evetually got us to our home for the next two nights, Fun Friendly Franks Backpackers, the cheapest we could find but its actually quite nice and we get free tea, internet and a beer when you get here! Last night we went for for dinner at Steiku Haoss which was lovely but we didnt realise there were 30 Harley Davidson members who had come from Sweden there having a party. Soon ... read more

In December I went to Riga with Triin to see Iggy Pop & The Stooges concert. At first we didn't believe that he is actually coming to Riga , because it's so close to Tallinn . Like Iggy Pop! We went there by bus. It was too dark and cold to hitch-hike. Unfortunately. Monday We got to Riga at 10 pm. We had accomodation through CS (www.couchsurfing.com). Our hosts, Maija and Richards came to pick us up at the bus station. They had a really cool kind of a underground appartment on Tallinas iela. We felt like at home. The appartment was quite big. And they had two the most adorable cats in the world. And I usually don't like cats that much. Lucky and Kitty. We talked to Maija and Richards for a while and ... read more

This ancient pearl of wisdom from Seneca echoes down through the ages, as I continue my travels through the beautiful Baltics, and get the chance to delve into the recent history of Latvia. After arriving in the capital Riga one feels like this is the centre of the world, with the beautiful UNESCO world heritage listed old town attracts tourists from western Europe and the United Kingdom. Riga is a short hop from it's Eastern European neighbours to the south, fascinates it's scandanavian neighbours to the north, and of course one cannot afford to ignore the 800 pound bear in the neighbourhood to the east ... er, that would be Russia! My journal continues from Siauliai, dear reader, from where I boarded a local bus for an easy four hour commute across the border and on ... read more

Latvia Europe » Latvia By zapatos de caminarAugust 20th 2006Keenan and Selene Lativa - Riga Another Baltic state, another gorgeous old town. There seemed to be less structure to Riga’s old town, it was easy to get lost and trying to find a particular sight was quite hard. The best strategy seemed to be to just wander around and try to work out what you were looking at. Riga’s old town was a lot bigger than Tallinn’s, and while it’s World Heritage listed, it’s used as if it were just a normal part of the city so it has a modern vs. old school feel. Sigulda About an hour out Riga, near the town is a huge national park with castles and caves. Despite the rain, we had a lovely day out and it was go... read more