Latvia - Riga

Somwhere in the afternoon we arrived in Riga, the capital of Latvia. It was raining at the moment, so our first impression was that of a dark city. And I must say that this first impression remained. When you read reports about the Baltic states, most people claim that Riga is the nicest city of them. I can't agree. I liked Vilnius a lot better.

The old town has narrow streets which circle this way and that, and it's not easy to find your way back to the hotel. The narrowness of the streets and alleys has a depressing effect, I find. We also took a city tour here with guide Erika. There are lots of old buildings, so you can spend a couple of hours seeing them all.

Riga is known for its Art Deco quarter. A whole block is filled with big mansions in this style.

Having discovered Riga, we did an excursion to Kemeri national park on another day. Here you find pine forests, bogs and old spa's.

This excursion ended in Jurmala, on the Baltic Sea. A storm had just passed by, and the sea was quite rough. We had planned to walk on the beach, but that was impossible.

So we went to a seaside restaurant instead and had a wonderful lunch with the local catch of the day. In these Baltic states, the way of preparation is different than ours. They smoke meat and fish more than we do. But I quite like the cooking.

All in all, it was a good trip and everything went to plan. We do all the planning on our own, never use a travel agency. And we never have a bad experience with this.