Riga: A bit of a pickle

With a long walk ahead of us to Tallinn Bus Station or Bussijaam as it's known locally, we were up early disturbing our roomies, who had an obsession with closing our curtains whenever we ventured away from them for more than 5 minutes. Seriously, people either don't like a window open or can't sleep when a tiny slither of light creeps into the room! We headed out fully laden into the cool Tallinn morning and made the journey in a pretty smooth, 35 minutes, although by the time we got to the Bussijaam we could pretty much wring the sweat out of our tshirts! Those lucky Devils getting to sit near us on a coach for 4 and a half hours! After what was the easiest, most organised departure for a coach so far we were on our way to Riga. Somehow, we made it in one piece despite our drivers best efforts of overtaking vehicles and hurtling headlong into incoming traffic. We stepped off into into the heat and commotion of Riga Bus Station, shouldered our bags and squelched off in search of our hostel. As ever, due to fairly good forward planning, it wasn't too far and found it conveniently placed on the 4th floor above a McDonald's. After trudging up the stairs we checked in and were taken to our oven in order to do some more sweating! (Charlotte only noticed on the day we left, that in the handbook it said "if you are hot in your room, please ask reception for a fan"). With not much time left in the day we braved crossing the manic rush hour streets to get to the local supermarket and pick up some eggs and beans for dinner. We needn't have bothered, the beans were saltier than the Dead Sea, which probably serves us right for going for the budget budget option. We headed to bed slightly hungry.

Peeling ourselves off the mattress after a night of continuous perspiration, we got a cold shower and headed for the free breakfast. After stuffing ourselves to the brim with bread and jam, cereal and gallons of coffee we headed out to catch the free walking tour. Having not long ago been in Scandianvia we were used to sunny days with chilly breezes, which always meant we needed our jackets with us. Now we were in the middle of a heatwave, which, while meant we could leave the hostel without an accompanying jacket, also meant sweating just standing in the shade browsing the city map. Anyway, we headed towards the Old Town and St Peter's Church to catch the free walking tour. We gathered infront of the impressive church and waited until the group swelled to what seemed like every tourist in the city. The guide then painfully went through every member, asking them their nationality and telling us silly stories about previous groups he'd led with people from those countries, Charlotte and I were fed up already. Eventually we headed off, with the guide telling us a story about a statue of 4 animals, which I'd love to repeat but due to the groups size and the noise everyone made, we've no idea what he said. After half an hour of him going on about his company being the greatest tour in town and everyone else's being terrible we headed for the Central Market. We both wanted to do this in our own time, so seeing it as a perfect opportunity slipped away from the group and were relieved to be away from the idiotic tour guide.

We headed back to the hostel for some quick respite from the 30 degree heat, topped up our water bottles and headed back into town. First stop was the Russian Orthodox Church, which seem to be impressive no matter where you are. Hopefully we aren't bored of them by the time we get to Moscow. This one had plain white walls with huge gold domes glinting in the afternoon sun. After a couple of circuits to take pictures we headed down a main road, once again in the direction of the Old Town. We passed the Freedom Monument as we entered the old town, which depicts a woman holding up 3 stars, which are apparently for the 3 independent Baltic States. Infront of this were wreaths and bouquets of flowers and 2 guards standing to attention, armed and in full uniform. We had to feel for them, standing there in the heat. We wandered in and picked up a sandwich for lunch and carried on milling around the old cobbled streets. We headed for the huge Daugava River in search for a bit of a breeze to cool down and headed over to get a view across to the city. We headed for a bigger bridge to come back over but realised to our disappointment it was only for trains so made a u-turn and headed back the way we came. After a long day in the sun, we picked up the ingrediants for an easy Thai Curry and headed home.

The next morning we headed for the massive Central Market, which is based in 5 huge former Zeppelin hangers, each divided into separate categories. 1 for meat, 1 for dairy, 1 for fish, 1 for fruit and veg and 1 for bread. We spent a good couple of hours wandering up and down the aisles admiring the huge amount of produce. There were stalls dedicated to all kinds of pickled veg, including whole bulbs of pickled garlic, we decided against trying these. Our only problem, was with the fish section, when a space became available, the ladies behind the counter would fish out a fresh one from the tanks behind them, plop it on the iced counter and leave it there to die. Maybe we were being soft but they should really be put out of their misery. Having never been to a proper fish market this may be common practice though. We headed out the back of the markets and into the numerous fruit, veg and flower stalls dotted around the hangers. We had been on the lookout for a nice bunch of grapes but with flies everywhere we decided against this move. We headed further out until the market thinned and ended but we strolled on through the backstreets of Riga all the same. Eventually we stumbled across a flea market full of shifty looking characters selling books in Russian, the odd tyre and general odds and ends. Feeling like we had ended up on the wrong side the tracks we headed to back towards the centre of the city, relieved to see a sign of life. We headed back into the old town to do a mop up of things we'd missed, which included the house of the blackheads, which is in one of the Old Towns numerous squares. The Blackheads were a group of unmarried merchants that were active in Estonia and Latvia from the 1300's all the way up to 1940. Obviously the house was used for whatever it was that unmarried merchants got up to behind closed doors in those days, who knows! We then headed along the river to have a look at Riga Castle, which we'd only just noticed on the edge of our map. If only it had warned us not to bother! It was covered in scaffolding and almost looked as though it was being built. I suggested heading out on to a bridge to see if we could get a better view but that really wasn't worth the effort either, it looked more like a prison than a castle. So, we headed back, stopping along the way to take a quick snap of a rather Soviet looking statue and headed home to get dinner and do our chores.

With Riga pretty much covered we decided to head out of town for the day. After a quick scour over the Wikitravel webpage for Riga, the top thing to do outside was go to a place called Sigulda, so we did just that. We headed for the bus station, picked up our tickets for the 1 hour 10 minute journey, which cost €2.15 each for a single on an air condition coach with free wifi and waited for it to pull up. Apparently, it "is a resort town, located in a wooded river valley containing forest walks, cable car, bobsleigh track and 3 castles and can be covered in a day". Yeah, if it's not 32 degrees and 80% humidity! we arrived, picked up some lunch and started one of the walks recommended by our map and instantly started dripping. we managed to get to a castle, had a wander through walking stick park (apparently Sigulda is famous for it multi coloured walking sticks) and passed the Lutheran Church and then decided to head to the other side of the river valley to scout out the humongous cave that was in the area. We just didn't fancy paying for the worn out cable car. We managed to find some steps down to the river but by the time we got to the bottom we were out of water and sweating buckets. Not wanting to get too far away from civilization and fresh water, we had a quick stroll across the bridge at the bottom and struggled back up the bug riddled steps. After finding a shop we picked up some refreshments. Heading back to the bus station, we decided to call it quits and head home. A quiet night in ensued with our pasta and pesto dinner and just trying to cool down.

  

Riga was another beautiful City a million miles away from what I had expected but still had some throwbacks from its Soviet past. We still managed to enjoy ourselves despite the heatwave, which couldn't be helped as I think the whole of Europe (apart from home) is having one at the moment.

Next up, it was time for the final of Baltic States, Lithuania.

James and Charlotte