Thursday, July 10, 2014

Pretty Riga, Latvia

We're really enjoying the Baltic states where all the people we've come across speak a bit of english and are eager to answer questions. The place we stayed at had a great buffet breakfast included so we fueled up every morning before hitting the pavement.  I love when breakfast is included.


We also found a neat self serve soup buffet place in town that served up really good tasting homemade soups made with various types of dumplings or potatoes. They even had home made crouton like dumpling you could add to your soup and we knew they were a hit because a couple of kids bought a bowl full of them only!!

Help yourself soup buffet



Potato soup and crouton like dumplings  - a hit!


Riga's historic area is much prettier than Vilnius. (Sorry Vilnius).  We were staying in an area known for its art nouveau with beautiful buildings and had to walk through this great park to get to the old town and market area.  It was a great day to start and end the day.


Part of the old town



We've been having very cool weather and it hasn't really felt like summer for us at all yet. (I'm not expecting any boo hoos from home considering the winter you just had!).  Well, we figured we'd go to the beach anyway.  We hopped on a train and headed out to Jurmala, a little beach town about 20 kms outside of Ryga.  It rained on the way there and the cool breeze picked up after we got off the train BUT, just as we reached the beach, the sun joined the party for bit.  We had read that amber washes up on shore sometimes, so we kept one eye out and came away with.... nothing except a cool day at the beach.


Soviet area concrete resort hotel, and a lot of empty sun beds