Day 4 - Riga, Latvia

Super early morning and very busy day! We woke up in Vilnius at 5:30 and left the hotel by 6:00 so we could catch our coach at 6:30 for Riga. We got there in time and waited for the coach to arrive. We’ve booked all our coach trips with the same company which is Lux Bus Service and it really is Lux! It’s super clean, comfortable, warm and even has an automatic coffee machine where you can have unlimited drinks. Lampros started by “making” us a couple of coffees and you can clearly see who is a morning person from the two of us…😂 watch the video and you will understand!
Our trip was quiet, we slept most of it and arrived in freezing and rainy Riga at 10:40. We were planning on leaving our backpacks at our room but ended up carrying them with us cause we had booked a free tour of the city for 11:00 and just got there in time before it started. Our tour guide was very pleasant and walked us around the town showing us all the important parts of the old city, such as the Art Nouveau character of the buildings, the cathedral with the largest organ in the world (6.400 pipes!), the cats around the city which are a symbol of it etc. There’s also a “new” main square which was made a 100 years ago by the towns leader by demolishing 15 houses! He had realised it was the norm in the rest of Europe to have a big main square for announcements and since he didn’t have the room for it he decided to demolish a few houses 😂. They have kept the “plan” of those houses though on the ground and you can see where they used to be. There are also three houses that are called “the three brothers” and were each made in a different era right next to each other - you can see the evolution of houses in Riga through these. He explained that most of the medieval buildings had been demolished by the Russians while they occupied Latvia, since they thought that they didn’t need them and they had to build new ones - which he said is something that most Latvians are sad about. All these interesting things were what kept us going through the tour, because the weather was dreadful and we were getting very very cold. It was raining and we didn’t have much of a shelter - also Lampros was not well dressed and by the end of the tour was trembling. So when it ended, we thanked him, gave him a tip even though it’s a free tour and walked into a cafe to get a drink and most importantly get warm and dry! When we were ready we walked to our room to settle down a bit, change our socks and have a small sit down before we continued our walk. Then we went to one of the biggest indoor markets of Europe - there was everything in there and we also had lunch - some traditional boiled chicken dumplings, a chaçapuri and some not so traditional sushi 😂 afterwards we walked to the national library which isa huge building with lots of floors and nice architecture. Although we didn’t understand anything since it was all in Latvian, we had a look around and then continued our walk to a nearby shopping mall cause I was desperately looking for a beanie - how did I visit cold countries without one?! I wonder…
We found a lovely wool one in a trespass clearance stand then then went back into the old town for another walk. When we got too cold, we stopped for a coffee and then went to the super market for tomorrow’s breakfast and snacks. We had lunch in a traditional food chain that the tour guide recommended to us called “Lido”. We had so much to eat for 14€ each and walked back to our room with full stomachs and a lovely full day in Riga. Tomorrow morning we have another early start cause we’re travelling to Tallinn, Estonia. We really enjoyed Riga and would definitely recommend visiting. Goodnight!!Read more