I ticked off another European country off my list this weekend with a visit to Riga for 2 nights.
The weather has been miserable in England all year so it was nice to get some sun, with temperatures around 23 each day.
You can see all of the major tourist attractions in Riga in a couple of hours on foot – walking around the Old City (Vecriga), Town Hall Square, the House of Black Heads, Riga Cathedral, St Peter’s Church, the Nativity of Christ Orthodox Cathedral, Central Market, Three Brothers and the Freedom Monument being the main sights.
Whilst walking from location to location you will go through Bastekjalna Park, which is a beautiful setting where a number of people were relaxing and/or sunbathing during my venture.
The city is very clean, the streets are pebbled, and you’ll pass lots of beautful buildings as you make your way around.
During my stay it was the start of the 2023 IIHF World Championships, with Riga being a co-host with Tampere, Finland. Slovakia were there in good numbers, counting 10 Slovakian ice hockey shirts on my flight alone. They were certainly the biggest-supported team I saw in terms of colours.
Latvia, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Norway also had a bunch of fans too. They were all in good spirit, even if Latvia did lose 0-6 to Canada on the Friday, and then 1-2 to Slovakia on Saturday night, whilst I was there.
On Saturday morning I took a train to Jurmala to relax on the beach for a couple of hours.
It’s a pleasant city and given that the flights were cheap and available from my closest airport, there’s no reason why I couldn’t take another short weekend trip there in the future.