Riga, Latvia

Neither one of us have been on as many long distance bus rides as we have on this trip, and the ones in Croatian and Montenegro were not the most comfortable. Therefore, when we found out there are no trains linking Tallinn to Riga we were not looking forward to yet another bus ride (little did we know how many more we had ahead us). The Eurolines bus turned out to be quite clean and comfortable (for a bus). The coolest part about the bus ride, though, was the free wi-fi, allowing us to check emails as we drove through the Estonian and Latvian countryside! It also gave me a chance to get caught up on my blogs. As advanced as we think we are in the US, we are pretty behind when it comes to technology.

There was a slight confusion in the name of our hotel when we first arrived (Grand Palace, Garden Palace – an easy mistake). After lugging our bags through cobblestoned streets for half an hour (have I mentioned that they may look nice, but they are not good for wheeled bags nor my feet), we arrived at the Grand Palace, a 4-star hotel. The lobby reminded me of the nice hotels I got to stay at during my Dannon days. Of course the Grand Palace turned out to be the wrong hotel, and the right one, the Garden Palace, is on the other side of old town. The guy at the front desk was super nice and drove us there – apparently this mix-up happens quite often. While it was not 4-stars, our hotel room was still nice so it wasn't that much of a let down.

Whereas Tallinn had a chill vibe, Riga's old town was more like a party town. It has the winding roads and the pretty town squares (here's one of them):

but Riga also has the reputation of being a big party town. It's popular with stag and hen parties (bachelor and bachelorette parties for us Americans) and you can stay out till the wee hours if you so choose. I'm sure some of it is because we were there over a weekend, and the Riga Festival was happening at the same time, but overall parts of it remind me a little of Key West or Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

One of the highlights of the Riga Festival was the “Formula 2 On Water World Cup Latvia Grand Prix”. I never even knew there's a Formula 2 but it was pretty cool to watch.

Here's a picture of the boats jostling for position right after the race started:

Two boats overturned during the race which added to the excitement.

We also tried to see this “Hot Air Balloon Shining” event, thinking it would be cool to see all these hot air balloons floating over the city at night, but after waiting for an hour it turned out they never had any intention of flying the balloons. They just fired up the balloons on the ground and since the balloons were spread out throughout the city you only see 1 or 2 at a time, so it wasn't all that spectacular. Here's what it looked like so you can decide for yourself (think seeing this go on and off for 50 minutes and nothing else):

For a change of scenery from old town, we checked out a “newer” section of Riga known for its Art Nouveau buildings (Riga has the world's largest collection of Art Nouveau buildings). It's a style of architecture in the early 1900's known for the eclectic and decorative facades.

Here's a close up of the detail from another building:

Anyone who goes to Riga should definitely make time for the Museum of Occupation. It offers a more complete picture of what the Baltic countries went through since WWI (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania all suffered similar fates). Whereas the other museums we went to focused more on the cruelty of the Germans and the Soviets, this exhibit provided a better overview of the events happening during that time. It's eye opening for someone who is not a history buff like me. We saw the secret pact between Germany and Russia on how they would split up the area from Poland all the way up to the Baltics. Lucky Poland got divided into 2 parts. Can you imagine? The fate of your country being decided by foreigners without you knowing or having any say in it?! It also showed how the Soviets bullied their way to fake an election in order to install a puppet government who then turned around and “asked” for Latvia to be admitted to the USSR. We think that this is all behind us, but given the situation between Georgia and Russia you do sometimes wonder.

Two days were short and sweet and perfect for Riga, and on Sunday we got on yet another bus headed for Vilnius, Lithuania.