The Sun Never Set on Our Trip Home

Our taxi left the Monte Kristo Hotel in Riga, Latvia at 5:45 am.

   

The boarding of our 2-hour Air Baltic flight to Germany occurred 7:40 am.

 

We had to wait more than five hours in crowded Terminal 2 after flying into Terminal 1.

   

Our Condor flight left this gate a half hour late and travelled over the middle of Greenland on a direct line home.

 

We arrived tired at YVR at 4:00 pm and were at home at exactly 6:00 pm.

The Final Day of Our Trip

Day 27 - This morning we had our second breakfast in the Monte Kristo Hotel in Riga, Latvia. We walked by the funky, nautical-inspired reception desk on the way into 'the dungeon'.  More importantly, later this evening we stopped to talk to the kind lady working on this public holiday of Midsummer. 

Jay and I arranged for a 5:15 wake-up call tomorrow and a 5:45 am taxi to the airport. Oh my! I do set my phone but always worry that night mode, against all experience, will cause my phone not to ring for a morning alarm. It's been nearly ten years since retirement and we're not accustomed to morning alarms!

 

Riga has been a fine end to our four-weeks in Central and Baltic Europe.  Our stay was short but full of new experiences.  It is easy to try to come up with some sweeping generalizations about the benefits of travel.   Smart people seem to travel.  I'm not sure if it is a cause or an effect.

This trip was a bucket-list trip for Jay.  He always wanted to visit Poland.  In Sri Lanka as a youth, he saw many Polish films from a communist influenced country.  I had very little knowledge of the country so had a bit less enthusiasm.  However, now I realize just how much I didn't know.  This is really the benefit of going outside one's normal.  One realizes how much there is that one doesn't know.  It should be humbling.  It should make one want to fill in more of the huge gaps in one's missing aspects and misunderstandings of the world.

This has been a trip that's done that.  I now love some of the places we have seen and would stay long term in many locations if given an opportunity.  I know more than just new geography.  I got bits of new information about history and cultures.

I will go back to Canada as a different person.  That is what travel is really all about!

Looking Around Old Town Riga

We enjoyed our second day in Riga.  We didn't have to go very far away from the hotel to see the old part of the city.  So, here we've not even bothered with transit tickets although we can see a few handy tram lines sporting both old and new cars.

We started off the day in the area we lovingly call the dungeon.  That is where we enjoy our breakfasts at this hotel.

BREAKFAST

We've had breakfast buffets in all of the hotels during this trip. This one in the Monte Kristo is probably the most unusual. We are staying in a building right on one corner of Old Town Riqa. The building itself most probably dates back to the eighteen century. It's only been a hotel for the last twenty years or so. The basement may be much older.

Of course the fun part of exploring a new city is learning some of the things that are considered a must for tourists.  There are stories to learn.  For example, why might this building have two arched cats on its roof?  Or what do the three stars she's holding in the Freedom Monument stand for?  If you go to Riqa, I'm sure you'll find the answers to these and many other things!

THE RIGA PUBLIC MARKET

Just across the tracks is the public market here.  There are four, huge, fomer aircraft hangers the that become the market area.  Other vendors are scattered around.  As this was spring there were literally tons of strawberries and cherries for sale.  And due to the northern European observance of Midsummer, flower and grass wreathes could be purchased.

STAYING CLOSE TO OLD TOWN

Vilnius to Riga

 

Day 25 - It was a pretty easy bus trip to Riga. We left Vilnius promptly at 10:20 am and arrived a little early here in Riga at 2:20 pm. The trip reinforced the spectacular organization of the Baltic Way, mentioned in yesterday's blog post.

The bus was new, comfortable, and cheap.  We each spent only $US 20 coming here.  It has a bathroom onboard and a free coffee machine.  The only daily train departed at 6:30 am which was way too early for us!  We disembarked in Riga after four hours but the bus continued onwards to Tallin, Estonia.

 

We checked into the Monte Kristo Hotel right on the edge of Old Town Riga.  Our room is enormous with a portrait painting of a bearded military officer looking from one wall.  This is certainly one way to keep guests in best behavior!

After unpacking, we walked out the door into the beautiful streets.  I must have pulled a muscle in my right leg and it was painful walking around.  The uneven cobble stones had me hobbling.  However, we stopped at a pharmacy and I got a box of 400 mg Ibuprofen.  If I max out with the three capsules per 24 hours, I should be fine as the area is remarkedly compact and well maintained.

We managed to walk through a upscale mall created from two, heritage buildings and found lunch on the trendy food court on the fourth floor.

 

We walked around in the evening too. Of course it's pretty light outside as sunset will take place at 10:22 pm here on this date. Jay and I have noted the girls wearing special 'mid-summer' flower hats. In fact, we learned that both Sunday and Monday are official holidays in Latvia because of the spring solstice.

 

This will be a fun place to spend this weekend!

Our Last Full Day in Vilnius

Day 24 - One good development in this type of travel is how easy it is to get hotel buffet breakfasts nowadays. People expect more than a bed now and this makes this type of trip very easy. We stayed in Ibis hotels in Berlin and Warsaw. Our time in Bialystok was in a Hampton Hilton. Now, we're in a boutique hotel called Ivoleta. The breakfast area is smaller but it is still a great way to begin a day of exploration.

 

It took us a while to get to the Castle Hill because our bus took an unexpected road.  We had to walk back across the river and take another.  However we were at Castle Hill in a short time and we were dropped off near the funicular.  

The breeze was a bit cool.  Occasionally the sun was covered by the clouds.  However, it was well worth the 2€ fee for us to ride up down.  In fact, I added one of this photos as my 'representative' single image of Lithuania in my Flickr album of Countries I've Visited.  It was great to head down to Cathedral Square in order to find the 'Miracle Tile'.

I can vaguely remember the Baltic Way. (Link to Wikipedia article.)  Jay and I would have been working in Bahrain when this took place and I'm sure that many people our age, from outside this area, may have forgotten about the fall of the Soviet Union. 

We did want to find the location here where the human chain of people 490 kilometers holding hands stretched to the capital of Tallin, Estonia. The so called, Miracle Tile can be found near the front of the Cathedral where the first person stood!

   

What a nice way to remember our time in Vilnius, Lithuania!

Exploring More of Vilnius

 

Day 23 - Today started with clouds and rain. One of the first things we did was visit the Old Town Public Market building as it's just a few hundred meters from our hotel. 

I'm putting the cat here for a reason. We had not seen a single roaming cat on this trip after more than three weeks. We have friends who recently took a Mediterranean cruise and provided a cat photo from every single port. We love how in Turkey cats are a part of public life, even in the cities. On the other hand, getting from Berlin though Poland seemed a bit of a cat-free zone. We noted cat food in the stores and on TV ads, but we witnessed none, except in a travelling box someone had on a train. So, this cat in the public market came as a bit of a surprise.

 

We used our transit passes a lot today.  Sometimes it was hard to figure out where we'd end up, but it was easy and a great way to look around.  We arrived by train and will leave on a bus, but ended up at the Vilnius airport today because of a bus we were on.  We also went far across the river out towards the modern sprawl of the city.

We always ended up being some place we wanted though.

We visited both new and old.

We got to some places in the evening that we'll take more time to explore tomorrow too.  This city really does have a lot to discover.

We have definitely needed three days just to get a 'feel' of the capital city here. Tomorrow will be our last full day in Vilnius, Lithuania.  We could easily spend a month, I'm sure!