Danskgirl's travel blogs:
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Riga
Entry 29 of 40 | show all | print this entry |
Beat a hasty retreat to Riga from horrible Parnu again on Eurolines, journey took 3 hours and and we saw lots of storks on the way, these are the baltics most representative birds. The cutest sniffer dogs got on the bus at the border with people even taking their photos.
So we arrive in Riga and get totally fleeced by a taxi driver (so different to Tallinn) little did I know this would be the last taxi we'd be in until we were well at home. C. was so mad he worked out everywhere on the map on foot from then on and I had an awful job to stop him confronting the driver the next day (like we purposely tracked him down). Anyway we rock up to The Grand Palace hotel on Pils 12 which looked exceptionally nice (I had booked it on the web and it seemed to be 3/4*) and so I cockily give my name and they say they cannot find the reservation and I get a bit annoyed, as there had been some messing with the reservation on the phone earlier that day that was supposedly resolved and I explained this and then they say can we take a copy of your passport madam, sorry for the inconvenience madam, what rate were we quoted and they show us to their room. Which was totally gorgeous.
So after cocktails and cheese board in the lovely fancy bar of the hotel we go off out exploring via Doma Lukums or cathedral sq., drinks in 'Alus Seta' and dinner in 'Kamala' a fabulous vege restaurant, which was yum (but you need to book or go early as it's a 2 person show with a massive menu). Where I get a call for the garden palace hotel asking why we hadn't checked in I said we had and they said no not to the GARDEN palace hotel, then I realise why the GRAND palace hotel is so nice it's 5 star and the best in the country! Well the GARDEN palace woman turned pretty nasty, ah well that's what they get for messing me around with the booking in 1st place! Just goes to show you can get a 5 star hotel on spec. if you are cocky enough. (Mind you if I had tried any of that on purpose there is no way it'd have worked). So the only question now was would we be charged the rate I said or the 5 star rate? Ah well too late to worry about it now.
So we had our 4th day of rain in 4 months (but that's not a complaint;) ) and so we did our usual walking tour of the town stopping in 'the museum of occupation 1941-1991' which was excellent (the nazis were the least of their worries), they have many nice coffee houses in Riga so this helped in the rain as we made our way around Klaku iela (the main drag) up to the freedom monument, past awesome art nouveau buildings (Riga is best known for this apparently), city park, the great and small guilds and the black cat building ('melnais kakis' which has a very entertaining story about a spurned merchant (by other merchants) and him building this to spite them and them complaining til he turned the arched back cat around another direction) then round by the arsenal, St. James barracks and the Swedish gate and down to the funky three brothers buildings and back onto Masa Pils (street by the hotel) where we saw 'free ungdomhuset' graffiti (see my Danish blog riot story), ended all this in De Lacy's irish bar for many Riga's balsams (Riga's shot size speciality) and people watching til the small hours.
So I am sure you're dying to know what happened when we checked out of our 5 star? We got charged the 3/4* rate I told them on check in, alriiigghhht. So liking Riga (apart from the crook taxi drivers).
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