Riga

The bus ride to Riga was under four hours, so we saw some countryside on the way through, mainly what looked like pine plantations edged by silver birches. As we got closer to Riga, we noticed lots of people foraging for wildflowers, which I didn’t realise at the time was specifically for the Midsummer celebration happening that night, where one of the traditions is to make flower crowns and decorate your house with flowers and foliage.

Coming into a city on a cloudy day and seeing a bunch of Soviet-era housing blocks made me think Riga wasn’t quite as welcoming as Tallinn had been, but there was certainly partying in the streets! We stopped at Two More Beers for our first dinner, and luckily arrived in time to get a table, as the place was filled with revellers, many of whom were wearing their flower crowns. Like many of the places we’d visited so far, there was a healthy non- or low-alcohol section of the beer/cider menu.

We were staying at a gorgeous apartment hotel themed around Sherlock Holmes – apparently when doing up the building, the owners found a letter from Conan Doyle about bookplates or something, and so they leaned into the Sherlock theme. There are murals on the courtyard walls, and each of the rooms/apartments is themed by a character. We’re in the Moriarty room, Number 16, which also happens to be on the fifth floor (in a building where there is no elevator. I’ve been cursing my lack of foresight to email the owners to ask for a lower floor every time we walk up the 97 steps to our apartment. It’s huge, and beautifully appointed, and it’s right in the middle of the Old Town. Just needs an elevator and a washing machine to be the perfect apartment.

Because of the no washing machine thing, we headed out on our first afternoon to find a laundromat. The apartment contact had sent through an address which was a bit out of the Old Town, so we hopped into a Bolt to head there to make our clothes clean. Since it was Sunday afternoon on a long weekend, nothing was open, but we did find a kebab place for lunch while our clothes sudsed and rinsed and tumbled.

Apparently you weren’t allowed to sleep on Midsummer Night, and were expected to carouse until at least 4.30am, so the day is very quiet! Nothing was open again, so we wandered around a bit to get the lay of the land, seeing lots of Brutalist and Deco architecture interspersed with a few Medieval towers, and then taking a boat through the canals of the city. Then we retreated back to the Old Town where there were some cafes and shops open for tourists like us who hadn’t realised we needed to be pre-organised. We had Belgian inspired food for lunch, followed by the traditional Latvian Black Balsam, a thick liqueur with a number of herbs. Being female, the waiter proclaimed that I should have the blackcurrant version, which was more popular and not as strong. R was allowed the (stronger) traditional, and I’m sure he appreciated the concession! Both of the balsams tasted like cough medicines we’d had in our youth, overlaid with blackcurrant for mine. At least we’d ticked that off the list!

R was very keen to go to an old Aviation Museum where there was a Mig 25. It was out near the airport, so we hopped in a Bolt and headed out there. The gate was locked and you have to ring a guy to come and let you in. Unfortunately, he only took cash for the E10 entry fee, and we didn’t have much on us, so R was the only one allowed in, while I sat in the shade at the entrance not being able to answer any of the questions asked by other tourists coming to visit the museum. So far the trip has been almost exclusively paid by card, even to the point of shops and hotels in Helsinki and Stockholm expressly saying they didn’t accept cash, so this block was a bit of a shock. I didn’t mind so much though… I like looking at old planes and things, but I was also happy to sit out, watch the (newer) planes take off from the airport down the road, and read a book.

In return, we went to a museum for me in the afternoon, popping into the tiny Fashion Museum. We’d heard it was small, but we hadn’t seen that it currently had a Vivianne Westwood exhibition. They had a huge collection of Westwood items, including runway looks, custom orders and items from her shops. I’d certainly recommend the museum for that alone – a real gem. It also had a tiny historical exhibit in a cellar type room with a timed light and music experience for each of the 6 exhibits showing different eras. Interesting, but also limiting as you couldn’t look at any of the other windows while one was being featured, as the lights were all off.

We also visited the Central Markets, a collection of five repurposed zeppelin hangars, each dedicated to a “theme” of market – fish, cheese bread and condiments, meat, clothes and random other items, and one that we skipped. The fruit and veg were outside, and we picked up some fresh raspberries and cherries (E4/kg for cherries! OMG! So good!) and some sliced meats.

I’d been hoping to try dumplings, but I seemed to be out of luck finding the place that offered GF ones (Zeest) as the food hall the nearest was housed in was closed, and then when we got there and it was open, it looks like the shop had closed! Luckily Bolt Food came to the rescue – there were other branches around the city and so the dumplings came to us! They weren’t all that great, but at least I’d tried some. GF eating is getting harder as the trip continues, with most cafes/bars having one or two options available, rather than half the menu as we found in the north.