Our flight for Riga from Vilnius was with Air Baltic. They have a very easy online checkin process with mobile boarding passes. We travelled to the airport in a lovely clean Prius UBER.

While waiting for our flight we passed the time with some shopping and then a Prosecco each.

The plane was tiny but comfortable and the service was great…. take note Wizz air!!!😤

The wifi at Riga airport is poor so Michele could not connect with the Yandex Taxi app. We spotted a booth for Baltic Taxis and they charge a flat rate of €15 to get us to our destination. A very simple process that takes away the anxiety of finding reliable and trustworthy public transport. It took about 20 minutes to get to our accommodation at http://www.booking.com/Share-8qA7Vz.

They stored our bags and recommended the Mildo restaurant as traditional Latvian food. We were greeted at the restaurant by a very cheerful waiter called Maris. As we were the only customers to begin with, we were given the choice of any table in the restaurant. We chose a window table and ordered a round of dirty martinis.

For lunch we ordered a soup each, Michele’s was Jerusalem artichoke with chicken and blue cheese, and Teresa had borsch. We also ordered some meat-filled potato pancakes to share. Omg what a fabulous meal!! The restaurant filled up but the service was outstanding. On departure the waiter asked that we leave a review on TripAdvisor, which she did.

We checked into the hotel and recharged phone batteries. The room is a bit more spacious than the last one, quite comfortable and in a great location. Teresa (typically) had only booked for one night, but luckily we noticed ahead of time and we were able to negotiate a much better price for the second night.

Batteries recharged, we set off to explore. On the way to the Christmas markets we found a permanent set of markets full of handcrafted local products made from wood, textiles, leather, amber and other materials. We spent a fair bit of time here admiring the handicrafts. As twilight approached (around 3:30pm!), we wandered through the picturesque old town and found the House of the Blackheads, which is a famous historical landmark of Riga.

Then there were the Christmas markets…..

The most authentic and delightful ones we have experienced since Frankfurt 2017! Perusing the stalls with Gluwein in hand, most vendors spoke very good English and there was a real sense of community. We even met a stall owner who had to show us his Wallabies beanie when he realised that we were Australian.

We enjoyed the traditional entertainment and the electric atmosphere for quite some time because it as just so enjoyable. A lot of the music that they were playing was from the late 1970s which took Teresa on a nostalgic tour back to her uni days.

There was a stall selling traditional Georgian cuisine and we ordered a wood fired type of gozleme with cheese and mince meat. delicious!

A couple more warming gluweins and it was time to leave the festivities and go back to our hotel for the night. We talked excitedly about how Christmas markets of this type really bring family and community together. We’re not sure that it would ever work the same in Australia though.

Riga has not disappointed so far. More exploring tomorrow. Ar labunakti!