Riga, the first part of the gift.

Christmas Eve, the time spent with family, the time of gluttony and gifts! The best gift I could found under the tree, were tickets to Riga, Vilnius and Berlin. Thanks to this - late in the evening on January 31 Me and Karolcia got into the bus, which with a little pit stop in Vilnius, drove us to Riga in Latvia. We were welcomed by beautiful sunshine, but frost still firmly held. At the beginning we picked up cash from an ATM, we took 70 lats which gave about 430 zł, which turned out to be a bit inadequate, but we didn't limited ourselves very much - Latvian currency is the strongest in Europe, and the prices are a little higher than ours. Then we went to leave things with our Couch Surfing hosts - it was our first experience with this form of travel. And then we went on tour.

Walk around the city. In the center of Riga is a beautiful park, and at its beginning stands very nice Latvian National Opera that was built in 1863 as a municipal theater. In the park, there is a lot of interesting sculptures, as well as the Statue of Liberty from 1935 - the symbol of the independence of the then-young state.

A few dozen meters away is the Nativity Cathedral from 1883, in my opinion one of the buildings which tourist have to see during visiting the city.

The most interesting buildings are the town hall, next to which is House of the Blackheads also known as the House of the Blackheads from thefourteenth century (rebuilt in 1999 after the war destruction), and against of it is a statue of Roland the patron of the city. Also located there is a museum of German and Soviet occupation.

House of the Blackheads An important point of visiting was also the cathedral of Riga from 1211 and interesting buildings that surround it, especially the evening visit adds a lot of charm to the place.

To conclude the tour we walked to pizzeria, where we met fellow countrymen with whom we spent a large part of the evening and after the meal as the young People we went to the park with beer, where we met the Russian and Belorussian guys, who were there with the same idea. Slavic blood is not afraid of the cold, or at least knows how to warm up. Finally, we went to our host and was very pleasantly spent the rest of the evening talking to them about Riga and Latvia. Second day One of the unusual things we saw on the way to the center was mixing of the new building with the old wooden buildings - something hardly met in Poland and Western countries in which we were.

Our first goal was market halls close to the bus and train station. An interesting fact is that the earlier the steel structure was used as the backbone of the German rigid airshiphangars during the First World War. Market is one of the places in Riga, where you can buy at a reasonable price an enormous amount of food, and more. For us most interesting were a huge bar of chocolate and a lot of halva pieces that we purchased as edible souvenirs.

After shopping, we headed back to the old city, where we went for lunch to suggestedLido restaurant. This is another place where you do not have to spend a lot of money, to eat something delicious. The food we ordered was not sophisticated but you can't expect more from this type of place, but it was a very interesting tasteexperience that I would definitely recommend - especially extras like melted goat cheese (At leastIassume from the taste, because unfortunately Latvian language is incomprehensible to me). In addition, important advice for cost-conscious is to take a small plate for the salad - the same amount fits, but it is about half the price.

With the help of encountered residents (interestingly there are no major problems with talking in English with the Latvians), we went to the bus in the direction of the TV tower. We really wanted to see the town from it - especially as it is 368.5 meters high, and is the third tallest building in Europe. Unfortunately, the site appeared to have a vantage point is above the clouds, so a trip to thisdoes not make any sense - the charmof travelingin the winter.

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After the excitement in the museum we went back to the central part of the city to see the Latvian Academy of Sciences, which is about half (108 meters) lower brother of Polish Palace of Culture and Science (230 meters). This is typical of socialist realist buildings, so common in the former Soviet Union (the largest of these are of course in Russia).

Latvian Academy of Sciences At the end we went for a small shopping, noting in the meantime charming hostel for cats. Interesting thing -in stores isavailable dried seafood, something popular among others in Ukraine and completely not present in Poland.

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Due to the very strong currency is hard to determine the amount we spend, so you should be careful when buying so trip will not turn out to be extremely expensive.

Public transport in Riga runs often, but it is poorly marked - at bus stops routes are described, but the maps where everything goes were nowhere, but luckily the people are very nice and it's easy to get their assistance to get to your destination.

If you are interested in souvenirs other than magnets or mugs, we can certainly recommend the purchase of Riga Balsam. A local alcohol sold in ceramic bottles of various sizes - from 50 ml to 1 liter, apparently even to 3 liters, but the stores we didn't have found such in stores. It occurs in two versions - with herbs, which, at least we did not like and with blackcurrant, which is really good. It should also be noted that the cork of the bottle is not perfect, so you have to be careful during transport.

Riga is a good place to visit, and I honestly regret that our trip was so short. We did not get to see all the interesting things, or get to highly recommended coastal boulevards. Two days is not enough, but it seems to me that within four days, you can see all the important buildings in the city and surrounding areas.

Riga, the first part of the gift.

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