Our last three days in Riga after the bungee jump were comparatively uneventful, though that’s not to say boring – Riga was one of our favourite cities so far! It has a really lively old town, but also lots of parks to walk through and chill out in.
We spent one more night in Riga Backpackers hostel, which was really social and with lots of nice people, but for the two last nights we decided to change to somewhere a little quieter. Mum says we are getting old, as this time round we keep complaining about people in hostels… and we agree, we definitely are! It’s fun for a few nights, but we had done with being social for the time being, so headed to a quieter hostel for a private room. Luckily, there was just the place upstairs from where we were staying.
The day after the bungee jump, we were pretty tired, so we just spent the day in the beautiful parks in Old Town, wandering round and enjoying the sun. Don’t ask me why I have a jumper on in the photos, it was a really warm day! There was a big lake, and we spent most of the day watching people attempt to paddle their boats and it.
That evening we went to Lido again for dinner, and spent a relaxing evening in the cinema watching Wonder Woman. It was in English with Latvian subtitles, which was perfect for us, except for when they speak foreign languages in the movie (which Wonder Woman does a lot, since she speaks every language in the world), they don’t put the English version for that, they just put it in the Latvian subtitles… so some of the jokes are going to have to wait until we watch a fully English version!
Me trying a Latvian special – cold beetroot soup. I had resisted before – because ew, cold soup – but literally every person in the restaurant was eating it and I didn’t want to miss out. And it turned to be really nice… it pays to try something new!
The next day, we just set about walking round the town:
The national theatre and it’s beautiful grounds
The Freedom Monument, dedicated to the lives of those who fought for Latvia’s freedom from 1918 – 1920. It’s huge and can be seen all over the city.
This statue is based on a Brother’s Grimm tale, that tells the story of the animals climbing on each other’s back to get a view into the cottage, where they see robbers inside, and later drive them out. It was made in 1990, when Latvia was on the verge of breaking free from the Soviet Union. It was meant to symbolise the animals looking through the “iron curtain”.
St Peters Church – the oldest church in Riga
For lunch, we visited Folkklub Ala Pagrab, supposedly one of the best places to eat in Riga, and definitely the most lively. We had hoped to go in and book for the evening, but it’s too popular and we couldn’t get a seat. But there was a free table for lunch, so we decided to stay and eat. There was folk music playing and the staff were really friendly and keen to tell us about all of the traditional food and drink.
Later on, we headed to the huge outdoor market for a wander. It is one of the biggest in Europe, with around 3000 stalls, and is a UNESCO heritage site, as it is made from old German Zeppelin hangars. We got some fresh supplies for breakfast and lunch the next day. 
The final day in Riga, we finished exploring the Old Town, but there was a huge bike ride on, that closed off loads of the paths. It turned out to be a good thing, as it meant we were diverted through lots of small backstreets we’d have never explored if we hadn’t had to.
House of Blackheads – Basically a huge bachelors pad since the 14th century
A small side street next to the old city wall
The Powder Tower… Yup, that’s a lot of gun powder
We went to see the three oldest buildings in Riga, known as the Three Brothers, but we were stopped as the Latvian Film Society were filming a movie, called Blizzard of the Soul, which is a love story about a 16 year old who goes into battle during World War 1. We were watching a scene being filmed where the soldiers march through the town and everyone is cheering them, and hanging out the windows. It was cool to watch everyone all dressed up, and we couldn’t believe that the whole 30 minutes or so, we watched them they just kept filming the same minute long scene again and again. Working in films must be pretty boring.
Since it was our last night in Riga, we treated ourselves to a drink on top of the Raddison Blu hotel – which we had read has the nicest view in the city. Well, we were going to treat ourselves to a drink there, but the prices were beyond extortionate, so we treated ourselves to a view of the city while we hid from the waitresses. After that we headed back into the Old Town, which is really lively in the evenings and then had some late night dumplings at Pelmeni XL, which is a little cafe where you help yourself to different flavours, toppings and soup and then weigh it at the end – kind of like frozen yoghurt for Pelmeni.
As we were walking back to the hostel, we realised that we hadn’t tried Riga Black Balsam on our visit. And the saying goes (on it’s own advertisement) “you haven’t been to Riga if you haven’t tried Black Balsam”. So we couldn’t miss out! But we definitly were not feeling a shot of liquor at this point, so we decided to try it in chocoate form from Laima – another famous Riga brand, one that makes really tasty choccie. I didn’t get to taste much of the liquor itself, as I took one bite and it went pouring down my front. Oh well, at least we had completed our “Riga Tourist Checklist” before we headed off to Estonia the next day!
Matt and Rosie's Travel Diary 