So I suppose the first blog post should be our most recent trip – our minimoon to Riga!

One of the most common questions when we told people we were going to Riga was ‘Where?’ It’s the capital city of Latvia, one of the Baltic countries, bordered by Estonia, Lithuania, Belarus and Russia. A small city, with a population of c.650,000. The next most common question was ‘Why?’. Well, we wanted somewhere neither of us had been to before, where we could spend a few nights away for a relatively low amount of money. The Baltics have always been on our list and Riga offered cheap flights with convenient dates/times.

Our first step for any of of our trips is to book flights. We found flights to Riga for less than £50 with Ryanair, although that did mean the dreaded Stansted experience – in our opinion the worst UK airport to fly from; but they do the cheapest flights to obscure destinations. When we travel we always choose flights with the earliest departure time, in this case 6:25am, and the latest return time just to optimise our time in the destination country.

As it was our minimoon we also treated ourselves to the lounge so we could escape from the crowds of hen and stag parties.

The flight was fairly uneventful… ok it wasn’t, but that’s a story for another day… and we arrived at Riga airport. A quick Google search of ‘best way from Riga airport to city centre’ revealed they use an Uber-equivalent called Bolt and that was the quickest/cheapest way. The journey was under 20 minutes and less than £10 so one of our better transfers.

On arrival at our hotel; a 5 star called the Metropole, we were met with an upgrade to an executive suite with a chilled bottle of wine! Tip – write in the hotel notes that it is your honeymoon, you never know what perks you might get. Our budget doesn’t usually stretch to 5 star accommodation but in Riga this cost us around £50pn which was great value especially when it included breakfast.

Day trip to Sigulda

I happen to work with a Latvian guy who gave us several recommendations and one of those was to get the train to Sigulda; a nearby town. It’s known for it’s national park and castles. We headed to the train station and bought return tickets quite easily; just 7 EUR for 2 return tickets for an hours train! When we arrived, it was a short walk to a park area with lots of activities. We decided to try the toboggan run, and get the chairlift back up the hill. We thought the toboggan might be good practise for the luge in NZ later this year.. turns out I’m a scaredy cat (who knew) and went so slowly I actually came to a stop on the hill at one point. Think I need to get braver next time!

We then took a gondola over the valley to start the long walk to look for a castle. The gondola goes every half hour so you just need to plan what time you want to return so you can book on it. It was very quiet though on a weekday so it was quite empty. We could have also hung on a harness above it like the 2 guys in the photo below!

We had a few hours to get to the castle and back so we chose one of the walking trails and got started. We took the trail which went via Gutman’s Cave, which is the widest/highest cave in the Baltics and formed 10,000 years ago. It’s made from sandstone so there were thousands of carvings in it. I attempted to leave our initials rather unsuccessfully with a twig.

We continued along the boardwalk for a few km until we reached the castle. We didn’t have much time to be able to spend there, and had to pay a couple of £ to get into the grounds so that we could take that all important selfie. It’s a recently reconstructed Medieval castle, originally built in 1214. There was time for a look round the grounds and garden before walking all the way back to the gondola, and back to the train station for a beer. We also hadn’t bought any lunch so bought a packet of banana biscuits from a vending machine for much needed energy.

One thing we find strange about the trains in Latvia is that you walk across the tracks to get to the other platform, rather than having a footbridge or subway.

After a quick change we went out for dinner. Our usual thing is to look up restaurants on Trip Advisor and make our decision using that. On this occasion we were just walking around and found somewhere with traditional Latvian cuisine. We tried Latvian grilled cheese, potato pancakes with bacon, and sausages with sauerkraut and potatoes.

We then took a short walk to the Radisson Blu as they had a rooftop bar. Cocktails were quite pricey but we enjoyed great views over Riga.

Riga is a very walkable city as it’s small and compact so we were only about 10-15 min walk back to our hotel.

We were very lucky with the weather as well, considering we had been warned about the amount of rain in June – we enjoyed sunshine and temperatures in the high 20s!

Day trip to Jurmala

The next day we took another train to Jurmala – a 25km stretch of sandy beach. The trainline runs parallel to the coast so we got off at the main station and walked along with the intention of getting the train back a couple of stops down. It was a lovely sunny day so we stopped for a local cider on the promenade. The tide was quite far out, and we could see people in the sea about 20m away who were still only up to their knees so it’s really shallow. We couldn’t miss an opportunity to have a paddle in the Baltic sea, and despite it’s name it was surprisingly warm. As it was 30degrees by this point, we walked in the sea about a mile down the beach before choosing a beach bar to visit. Beers were about £4 a pint, so it’s not as cheap as we expected but cheaper than the city centre. Jurmala is where the locals go in summer so we were the only English people we saw there.

We then took a walk a bit further back from the beach, through a park. There was a van selling bubble waffles, so we had to try one of those. The ice cream was Black Balsam flavour; a local blackcurrant flavoured liqueur and it was delicious. We also walked up a wooden tower, hoping for views of the beach but it was just treetops. We would definitely recommend this beach area on a sunny day; the train only takes about 30mins and was around 5 Euro between us for a return ticket

Back in Riga we decided to go for an Indian for dinner at the Raj as it had great reviews on Trip Advisor. It was really tasty and good value as well. A bottle of Prosecco was less than £10 which was a nice surprise as beers were generally £5 a pint in the city. We also found a Happy Hour at a nearby bar… finding Happy Hours is kind of our thing! They did cocktails which had Black Balsam in so we enjoyed a Black Mojito, and a Balsam spritz.

Last day; exploring Riga

On our last day we took a walk up the river to the Andrejsala area. It was only 45 minutes but it was the hottest day yet. It’s where the cruise ships dock and there was a bar which we had been recommended called Aqua Luna. It was on the riverfront and looked a bit upmarket for us but as we’d walked all that way we decided to have a drink. An Aperol spritz and a beer was definitely more than we’d usually pay so we wouldn’t recommend there ourselves; although it was nice to sit on the river and watch the boats.

We then took a walk to Big Bad Bagels, which was one of the highest rated eateries in Riga. It didn’t disappoint. We enjoyed a fresh, cheap bagel (mozzarella, pesto and roasted veg for me) with a local beer. Next on our recommended list was Black Magic; a small cafe/bar selling cocktails and chocolates made with Black Balsam. If you go downstairs, through a secret door in the bookshelf, you find yourself in a stone cellar which was lovely and cool. They make the chocolates there so you could have a selection of truffles, hot chocolate, or of course a cocktail. Again; this is probably more of a tourist trap so it wasn’t cheap but it had a good atmosphere anyway.

We finished our trip with a look around the large market which is in some old war hangars near the river, and then our last supper was at Easy Beer. Here they give you a card which you use in one of several beer taps to pour your own drinks. You just poured however much you wanted and you could see the price going down on your card. It gave Bobbi the opportunity to try some more local beers before heading to the airport whereas I stuck to my newfound favourite local cider. The food was pretty good too and they had Happy Hour as well which made it better value for money.

Overall, Riga is a lovely city to visit. Because its so small, we would recommend one or both of our day trips, as you can see the main sights in a day’s walking. It’s still relatively unspoiled by tourism, and most people we came across could speak enough English. The prices for food and drink were more than we expected, however it may be because they’re on the Euro, and it was no more expensive than home. The architecture is beautiful and we can’t wait to see more of the Baltics one day.

That’s the end of our first travel blog; if you read this far then well done! Our next trip is our honeymoon – Kuala Lumpur, a fortnight in New Zealand, Sydney and Singapore, very exciting!

Love, the Frosts