“It was a massive party with celebrities, cost 280 euros for a ticket, but they forgot to invite me so I can’t really tell you how it was on the inside…”
– Oleg, our boat captain and tour guide
I had mentioned to my taco girls that I wanted to organize a trip for a weekend somewhere in Europe. I had planned to just go and anyone who wanted to join me could. Turns out they all joined for this, hopefully, first of many girls’ trips ❤
My choice for this trip was Riga: The Paris of the Baltics.
I went with the tried and true. Booked ONE activity and got a hotel close to it and not too far from anywhere else that might be interesting to go see. We ended up at the Rija Riga Hotel close to the old city and the river. A cute little self check in, self check out hotel where you got a code for the gate and a code for the little locked box with the room key and we never saw another living person outside our group at all. The beds were -not- comfortable unfortunately, cause I’d love to recommend this hotel, but it almost threw my back out the first night and I needed Paracetamol to get through so… Other than that the rooms were charming and the location stellar.
A bit of a problem on our last day because we had to check out early and had planned to just walk a bit through town and pick up souvenirs and such, but since there is no reception there is nowhere to hold our luggage and three of us had extra suitcases. They were wheely ones though and I was feeling exceedingly tired the next day so Barbro and I held up in a lovely, little pub with a charming (far too young for us) barman called Reiners. The others went to check out a church tower for the view and we split up a bit to get souvenirs and stuff while having our base at the O’Paps Pub.
Our first evening was spent hunting for a place to eat, which was harder than it looked. We went into a few restaurants in the Old Town and asked if they had seating, but when they heard we had no reservation they said “of course not” ;-D That Baltic straightforwardness, never change.
We ended up having our first dinner at Lidos where we went on the website and randomly chose stuff that looked good hoping it wasn’t too spicy or tasted bad… I felt like I was right back on my round the world trip 😛 Point and Eat being the nae of the game.
Day two started with breakfast at Cofyz, another yummy franchise place, before we walked to the guided boat tours docks. I was hoping it would be good and luckily for us the massive downpour of rain the weather app had predicted held off. We even had sunshine(!)
We got to the docks and checked in and the guy told us we would get our own boat which suited me very well. A cute, little whatever-type-of-boat-it-was came puttering along and Oleg, our captain, got us all onboard before he launched into explaining that “Shiyuzu” the restaurant on the docks was mega-super-fancy and there had been a GRAND OPENING that cost 280 euros for one ticket. So many celebrities and fancy people in fancy dresses… Unfortunately he couldn’t tell us how it had been because the organizers had completely forgotten to send him HIS ticket so… Alas…
He was a funny guy, I liked hi a lot. He took us under the -very- low bridges so we could cruise along the river inside the city and this is where the level of “cozy” ramped up to 11. The docks were too close to the sea so it was more open, but once inside the inner city it was all green banks filled with flora and fauna, ducks quacking and dodging the boat, swans with their own house by the riverside(!) and beautiful greenery. Some local dudes fishing even… Very cozy and calm and Oleg kept informing us about the buildings we went by and a bit about the history of the city. He certainly earned his tip.
I booked a table at one of the restaurants we’d seen the previous day, “Kalku Varti” and we had a lovely dinner, topped with an absolutely sumptuous chocolate fondant with a pistachio filling that tasted like genuinely home made marzipan. On the way back we saw a building that looks like it might have a limited lifespan to be honest… It’s sinking in the middle O.o
I found my Christmas ornament, a bauble with tiny pieces of amber glued all around it, a perfect symbol of Riga – the city of Amber.
“Riga is closely tied to amber because it serves as the cultural and commercial capital of Latvia, a region historically renowned as a global hub for Baltic amber, often called the “gold of the Baltic”.”
We split up a little the second day because Marie wanted to visit library we had seen from the boat. Pernille and Tone wanted to check out second hand stores and Barbro, Hilde and I wanted to see the massive market we had also seen from the boat. The market itself turned out to be mostly food and trinkets so I wasn’t too impressed by it, but the buildings were cool though. They had housed massive German zeppelins during WW1 (for some reason). They were -huge-.
We also passed by the famous “Cat House” of Riga. Apparently, it was built in 1909 by architect Friedrich Schefel. The Cat House was commissioned by a wealthy merchant who had been denied entry to the city’s prestigious Great Guild. In a bold statement of defiance, he placed the two cat sculptures so their tails (and therefore asses) would point directly at the guild house across the street. The gesture sparked outrage and a lawsuit, after which the cats were reoriented, so they pointed their butts towards some other unfortunate houses… but their legacy has lived on.
Pernille managed to get the best buy of the trip. A hot pink coat with leopard print on the inside. It may sound weird, but it was gorgeous! Along with her new, pink bubble vest she hit the jackpot.
We had lunch/dinner at the pub before walking to a larger street and ordering an Uber to take us to the airport. Wonderful trip. Hope we manage the same next year ❤
