Latvia joins the party!

Mike again - yep I'm kicking this one off too.   

We left you last time, as we headed to the train to Latvia. Sounds simple - right?   Let me clarify ... we got on the train just in time (unusual for me). There's only one train a day from Tallinn to Riga, and we were picking it up at Tartu, so it was packed. A bunch of teenagers were siting on the floor on their backpacks and all the bike hook spots were taken by bikes or by people siting in the fold up seats where the bike rack is.  Anyway, we found one hook, and with some bungy cords managed to get the other bike vertical next to it!  We then stood up most of the way to the border (Serena got a seat half way).  At the border our train pulled into Valga station, where everyone continuing towards Riga had to swap to the Latvian train (later discovered it was actually a Lithuanian train), however of course there's no signs explaining anything!  Serena found an official to ask and it turns out the train opposite on the same platform was the one. We jumped on... getting bike hooks and seats ... woohoo!

Final train story... 2 stations later we arrived at Valmiera - there's no sign, and no platform. There's just a bitumen area next to the train track.  Fun! with 2 fully laden bikes!!

So... after a 3k ride into town we found our "Lovely" accomodation, (after a walk through a construction zone blocking our apartment)... the reviews warned us "don't judge it from the outside"... so we didn't (or tried not to)... however we did judge it a little when we discovered there was no hot water (it is delivered from a central town system - and it was out all through town!!).  

Valmiera (Pronounced Valmera to us locals) is a pretty small town approx 20k people. We wanted to get a feel for the sorts of towns we'd stayed in on our cycling journey.  We had 2 nights and a day and a half, and that felt like way enough. It was cute, we found a nice cafe and had our first cafeteria style lunch on the main street, which was pretty awesome. These "take a tray and get what you want, then pay by weight" places are everywhere and super busy, so the food is good and fresh.  After lunch I went for a ride out of town to get a feel for the place, and it was so great to be luggage free on the bike for a while!

Dinner was at "Ah Meat", it's a middle eastern kebab type restaurant that was exactly what I needed - serious food and serious flavour.

The following morning we rode early to the station to catch the local Latvian train to Riga, what a time capsule, we managed to lift our panniers and bikes up from ground level (almost) to the train, and found the 2 bike hooks. Phew... all good!  I'm still trying to understand how the 100km journey to Riga took over 2 hours, but hey, we got to see a lot of countryside (and it was slightly faster than rising)!

Our stroll in Valmiera

The local cool cafe

The cafeteria style bistro for lunch - hugely popular

 Serena had cabbage roll and a rissole with salad (right) and I had a schnitzel type thing with potatoes and goulash sauce (left) - it was pretty damn good.

 

I went for a ride...

 

And then dinner at Ah Meat - YUM!

Leaving our very (un)glamorous accommodation for the train station to catch our train to Riga

On the platform waiting for our train to arrive

The big step up

All in and organised - Riga here we come!

Riga

Now it's Serena here to chat about Riga.  We loved it.  I'd warned Mike that last time I was here I found it pretty dark, dour and sad, so unlike how I'd experienced Tallinn.  This time it was alive, fun, and very busy - so many locals and tourists out and about, the city had a wonderful bustling feel and we came away really loving our stay there.  Of course the fact we'd booked a gorgeous studio apartment in downtown didn't hurt - I said to Mike on the train out of Riga that I felt like I'd been pampered and indulged my whole stay there.  I realised that with all the go go go of the cycling and the constancy of being on our toes for the the next phase of riding, it was so lovely to stop in a beautiful space and just tourist away.  It was heaven.  We walked and walked, old town and new town, the inner suburbs, the wonderful parks and gardens, and we ate at a local cute bakery for authentic brekkie pastries (after we'd tried a very cool bakery that just didn't deliver flavour), and we also ate at Lido.  Lido is a chain of these cafeteria type restaurants that are the norm in Latvia - you get good food quickly, and for us it meant we could try a bit of this and a bit of that - it was our kind of place!  One of the stand out foods we tried were cherry pelmenis - we'd gone to the famous food markets and found ourselves ordered and seated at the pelmeni stand - Latvian dumplings.  We chowed down on some beef pelmenis (with sour cream), then decided to jump into the cherry ones - OMG YUMMMMM!  The cherries were sweet and sour (I don't think any added sugar in the cherries, just stewed in their own juices - DIVINE) - the Eastern Europeans do amazing things with cherries.

Sadly, after two nights we had to leave our special little oasis.  We had a few hours to kill before the train so did another round of the Old Town (and some strawberries with melted chocolate), then caught our train to Vilnius, Lithuania.  The bikes were on, the panniers overhead in the racks, and we had a fab 4 hour train ride through beautiful countryside to this FANTASTIC city we're now in - Vilnius.  We've been here two nights already, and tomorrow we train it to another little stop to see what small town Lithuania is like.  So, stay tuned, Sportsfans for the Lithuania update in a couple of days, but spoiler alert...WE'RE LOVING IT!

My Coke at our lunch stop on arrival in Riga at the Riga Museum (I popped in afterwards to check out their exhibition on Freedom Art)

Our hangout - our apartment was on the ground floor of this building - we were right next to the gorgeous Art Nouveau neighbourhood.

Our gorgeous room

Just around the corner...

Food highlight 1 - the cherry pelmenis with sour cream...so good!

Food highlight 2 - Our fave dish at Lido - these magnificent crispy fried together chips - almost everyone I saw had them on their plate, they reminded me so much of how my Mum used to make chips.

Food highlight 3 - our little cafe/bakery around the corner where the locals hung out - sooooooooo delicious and far superior to the new cool bakery we tried

Food highlight 4 - strawberries with melted chocolate - the strawberries here are just so good.

Old Town - gorgeous (and full of tourists)

The gardens and parks in Riga were just glorious

A tree of bird nesting boxes

On our last day hanging out in Old Town again on the way to the station - of course we got caught in a downpour.

Our special trick of standing under a tree when it pours.

And GP, we stopped to check out the Opera House as you suggested - but alas we couldn't get inside, but the outside was impressive and the doors beautiful

The train trip on our way to Vilnius.  Really beautiful.