Latvia

boxed text

Money:
I was amazed to see the amount of wealth on display in Jurmala - there were some very 'beautiful people' wandering around, and you could find just about every super/sports car parked up outside the hotels.

Latvia was one of the last countries in Europe that I hadn't visited, so I had to put that right. I crossed the border on bus from Vilnius that got me to Riga, but I decided to head out into the countryside straight away and walked from the bus station into the railway station and caught a train to Sigulda.

But I get ahead of myself - when I climbed aboard the bus in Vilnius I noticed that the seat that I'd been given at the back of the bus was covered in water - the bus roof leaked, and it had rained heavily overnight. Of course there were no other free seats - so I got given a box of tissues to mop it up. I was more worried that there was more water in the roof to come down, but aside from a few drops I stayed dry on my trip.

My fellow passengers were an interesting mix, an Iraqi who is now living in Sweden and an American over for a conference. We covered quite a lot of topics!

Jurmala beach

Anyway back to Sigulda (which is a very pretty place), the train took just over an hour to get there and was perfectly dry. The main draw of the town is the castles - there are at least three. A new one, an old one and a really old one. Although technically one is across the valley in another village. So I spent a very pleasant day walking around between them, and catching the cable car across the valley to cut out the hike down and back up the other side.

The other part of Latvia that I got to see was Jurmala, a beach destination about 20km outside Riga, which I did as day trip on the train. Now beaches and me don't really get on - a beach holiday in my mind is a waste of a holiday. Why would you sit around getting burnt and finding sand everywhere when you could be out seeing things? however the beach at Jurmala was very pleasant, and the Baltic seemed to be very clean.