We took a bus trip to Latvia’s capital, Riga for a splendid couple of days, staying at a really nice little hotel right in the thick of it and at reasonable cost.

Vecriga is the old city and is full of interesting buildings and people from all over. There are restaurants and bars on every street, each offering nightly live music of numerous types – we opted for a spot at Old Riga where a group of three were playing Recorder, Viol da Gamba (sort of a 7 string Cello) and a Luttie like thing with more strings than I could count. They were playing the sort of music you’d expect Henry VIIIth to have listened to… and were dressed in period costume to boot!

My photos probably don’t do Riga justice – it truly is a magnificent spot – though both Laurie and I agreed that Gdansk had it by a hair – possibly partly due to us being hot and sweaty all day  in Riga– in the glorious heat!

Our return bus ride was similar to the outward one – long (3 1/2 hours), bumpy and very hot with minimal ventilation!

 (Click on photos to enlarge.)

We provisioned yesterday – will do a little more today (didn’t get enough alchohol!) and will head out later today for Finland’s Aland Islands. These are a group of 5 – 6,000 islands that lie between Finland and Sweden right at the top of the Baltic Sea. Apparently half the channel markers of the world are in this area! We have heard from all sorts that there are rocks aplenty to fall foul of – so we’ll be on our guard. The trip up there will take about 36 hours – so we’re planning 2 overnights this trip and hope to arrive early on the 11^th and then will spend 7 – 10 days wandering around the islands and totally ‘off the grid’ – see you on the flip side.

Will be updating the Spot – so you can see where we are under the “Where we are” tab at the top menu.