I spent this weekend in Riga together with Hanna, my Cousin Suzanne and her boyfriend Magnus. It was a really nice trip to an interesting town, and most of all it was a much needed break from everyday life. I have written a short travel log for those of you interested and there will soon be some pictures in the gallery.

Day 1
We meet up with our fellow travellers, my cousin Suzanne and her husband to be Magnus at Arlanda airport around 07.00. After a quick breakfast we borded our fligt, a Focker 50, that took us to Riga. We had decided to take a cab from the airport, sadly we weren't the only ones with that idea, and we had to wait for about 20 min. After arriving to the hotel, and Suzanne and Magnus changing their room, we headed of in to Rigas centre. We spent the afternoon walking about and had palmeni for lunch at a place called Palmeni. After this we headed back to the hotel for some rest, since we had all gotten up quite early. After some sleep and a couple of beers in the hotel room we again went down to the city centre, to get us some dinner. We found a comfy French restaurant were we stayed until closing. Due it having been a long day we called it a night as soon as we got back to the hotel.

Day 2
Day two started of the a fabulous breakfast at the hotel, were they served anything you wanted and then some. Having a chef make your custom omelette while you waited was nice. Well feed we went on a walking tour in the old town of Riga. It was a good tour, and we got to see a lot of nice sites, even if it was a bit to cold to fully appreciate it. After this we went to the shopping area and visited Stockmann and some other malls. We had lunch in the old town again, this time we all had soup. Feeling a bit cold we decided to head back to the hotel for a warm sauna bath. Since the spa area of the hotel was being rebuilt we were instructed to go to Kipsala, free of charge. This turned out to be a run down public bath, way below what we had expected. Dissatisfied we went back to the hotel for a shower and some beer. For dinner we took a cab across town to a excellent Italian restaurant named Tiramisu. The food and the service was extremely good, and we were all very happy leaving it. A short visit to the so called hotel casino proved that the non-smoking laws in Sweden are great.

Day 3
The breakfast this morning was equally fantastic and we made sure to enjoy it before checking out of the hotel. With our bags in the luggage storage we went downtown to visit some museums. We started out at the Occupation museum, learning about the life in Latvia during the German and Soviet occupation years. The museum was a lot better and larger then any of us had expected and time flied. We decided to skip the War museum so that we had time to get some lunch before heading of to the airport. Having read about the grill resturant Pilgrims we decided to try it out. After this we went back to the hotel, collected our bags and went of to the airport. Somehow they had managed to spread the smoke from the smoking area to all of the waiting lounge, so it was a irritating 90 min wait until the plane left. Back at Arlanda airport we said our goodbyes before taking a train back to Falun.

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Carl Cedergren
2006-03-13 10:10

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