We took advantage of the lovely breakfast rooms to have coffee and brekky before starting our day.

Riga Central Markets are a massive undercover and outdoor operation. Areas are generally organised according to the goods sold.

It was an easy walk from our hotel and there were spatterings of icy snow around. We entered through the fish section first which offered all sorts of smoked, fresh and unusual seafoods …. and of course there is a distinct fishy smell.

The next hall focussed on fresh fruit and vegetables and other plant products. Lots of cabbage and pickled vegetables!

More stalls sold milk products, breads of every variety and all sorts of nuts.

Another hall was devoted to fresh meats and we remarked on how there was a lack of smell you might expect around this produce.

There were souvenir stalls throughout and then clothing, flowers, shoes, household goods and many more inside and outside.

We found a cafe called Cepelins, which we quickly realised was the ‘Lido’ type of canteen that we missed in Minsk. Heaven! Teresa chose the traditional Latvian meat and vegetable soup and Michele enjoyed a stuffed roast capsicum of meat and rice topped with white sauce and accompanied by grated cheesy potato and bacon. A couple of dark beers were also very refreshing. This all cost the equivalent of $20 AUD, which was a very economical choice for us, and a stark contrast to the $90 lunch that we enjoyed the day before!

After a recharge at the apartment we set out to explore some more of Riga Old Town.

We found a lovely little cafe called ‘Problem Solver’ where we had some refreshments while listening to some live music.

It was time then to get to the Christmas markets again so we could get some street food for dinner. We went back to the Georgian stall for more of their delicious food and hot drinks (which he spiked with rum upon special request).

Many families and individuals were enjoying the festive atmosphere as we wandered around and marvelled at how lovely it really was.

Riga is definitely a place we would recommend to visit. The people are friendly and the streets in the old town are relatively easy to navigate. Time for bed, up early tomorrow for our next countries. Ar labunakti!

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!

The Involita Hotel provide a wide range of choices of hot and cold breakfast foods.

Using Google maps makes it so easy to navigate in unfamiliar places. You can download the map while online and use it offline. We walked to the KGB museum which is in the old KGB building which includes the interrogation rooms and the gaol beneath. It was a very sobering and sad experience created through politics and power.

We are also keeping up to date with the horrendous situation of the fires in Australia. To see how the community is supporting the RFS and those people who have been affected is very uplifting and shows the better side of humanity. Our hearts and thoughts are with you always❤️.

After the KGB museum we wanted to find the Skybar at Radisson Blu which promised a spectacular view of Vilnius. On the way we found a shopping complex where Michele purchased her new Europe hat – very classy!

At the Radisson we took the lift to the 22nd floor to find the bar would not open until 6pm. So we took photos from the windows and then settled for G&Ts in the classy hotel lobby.

The darkness began to set in so we made our way back across the Neris River to the next museum we wanted to see.

There was a permanent exhibition displaying optical illusions and light tricks. The other display was of particular interest to Teresa as it was all about absurd inventions and patents. There was also a whole section dedicated to Chindogu, which is a whole lot of useless gag inventions native to Japan.

We tried to get a table at the restaurant that we couldn’t get into the day before but this time we were ignored. This particular street seemed to be the one place that every tourist wanted to eat in, so we decided to go wider. We found a lovely little ‘GastroPub’ called Mason. Here we ordered beef stroganoff, which was served with fries and pickles! We washed these delicious meals down with some Italian Pinot Grigio. Wine is actually quite expensive over here in European restaurants (from previous experiences also). We commented that in Australia, ordering a bottle of wine to share with dinner usually keeps drinks cost down. Over here it seems to be the opposite, if you stick with beer or spirits you will have a much cheaper bill. You can still pick up a decent bottle of wine for around €7 at the supermarket though.

Dinner done, it was time to make our way back to our apartment and get our things in order. Latvia tomorrow. Labos nakties!

Michele and Teresa needed to get to the airport for an 8.40am Belavia flight to Vilnius, Lithuania. For some annoying reason, the wifi did not work in our Minsk apartment this morning. That meant that we could not use the taxi app to order a cab to the airport.

Michele and Teresa left Scott sleeping since his flight was later in the day and made our way to the Macdonald’s down the road near the Gates of Minsk in the hopes of getting some wifi…. but it was not open at 6am.

We went to the central station hoping to get some wifi but could not connect here either. So we determined that there should be a cab rank close by. We approached one and tried to negotiate a price. The language barrier was making things a bit vague but we decided to trust him and he got us to the airport in one piece, albeit we did pay the premium price (which we think was a mixture the time of day it was and also that we were tourists who were easily taken advantage of).

One thing we did notice was the fact that there are not always seat belts available for use and the drivers barely use them (we noticed this in Kiev too). Yet here in Minsk the roads are so wide and efficient that you do feel safe enough.

The check in process was fuss free but the border check, even with leaving the country was very thorough and took longer than entering the country. There were duty free shops in the departure area but we did not want to add to our suitcases just yet!

The Belavia flight was very comfortable with decent sized seats and leg room.

Our experience in Minsk was all positive and we are so pleased that we spent the time here. We would absolutely recommend this beautiful country as a must see to anyone interested. We have already commented that we will be comparing every city that we are yet to see to Minsk.

Arriving back into the EU is heaven as far as border security is concerned. We just go to the passport scanners and pop through!

Vilnius is an hour behind Belarus so we landed before we took off.

Uber was operational from the airport and took us to the hotel Involita within 15mins for €8. This hotel is located in the heart of the old town and finally has a lift! The room is basic but comfortable and includes breakfast.

We dropped our bags off but could not check in until after midday, so we set off in search of breakfast and a hairdresser. The cafe that we found was attached to a jewellers and was adorned in pink flowers and furniture. We ordered coffees, breakfast and mimosas.

After breakfast we walked around the old town and finally found our blow dries! We waited for our appointments at another very modern cafe that had swings for chairs!

Salon-ready once again, we looked for a place to eat lunch. We thought that eating at 2:30-3pm would avoid the lunch at rush but it seemed that everyone wanted to dine at that time too. One restaurant turned us away before we squeezed into a table for two at another. Two chicken Kievs and some dark beers were ordered and we were not disappointed.

By the time we left the restaurant it was dark so we did a bit more exploring, got some supplies and then settled in for a relatively early night, it had been quite a big day. The Australian fires were the main story on the BBC news, they still look devastating.

There is a music channel that was playing 80’s hits and we realised that Wham’s Last Christmas has been the song we have heard the most of throughout Europe. But look at what they played today!

Labos nakties!

Minsk was essentially a ghost town on New Year’s Day. We decided that we would find something to eat and then catch trains across the metro. It would have been good to plan a day trip on a country train but we enjoyed the Soviet decorated stations instead.

We had wanted to visit the Lido cafe which is like the old milk bars in Poland where you choose your food from the dishes displayed, line up to pay and then collect and eat your food. They are like canteens. Sadly, Lido and everything else was shut so we had no choice but to have Maccas.

On the way we walked past the permanent circus building with it’s quirky statues.

Down in the Metro, everything is soooo clean, including the underground walkways, stairs, platforms and trains. The glass on the trains is even devoid of finger marks!

The system is extremely efficient, with trains arriving every 5 minutes. Each trip, no matter how many stations you passed cost 50 Australian cents which you just pay using your visa the same as you would an Opal card in Australia.

We picked random stations to alight from and walked into the open to see some of suburbia. Most places were shut because of the holiday. We did get to see some older Soviet buildings in the outer suburbs though.

We returned home to recharge and then decided to try the taxi app that is used here instead of UBER, called Yandex.Taxi to check that we could use it to get a cab to the airport tomorrow as we are leaving very early.

The setting sun was spectacular behind the Gates of Minsk. It was the only day we saw the sun here.

The cab arrived and took us to Karl Marx place again to find some good food. The app lets you choose if you want to pay with card or cash and the ride and payment process was fuss-free. The Grunwald restaurant was full so we walked back to Cafe Michel and had an excellent variety of dishes. Scott ordered chicken with sherry fried sage, Michele had beef filet with mushroom ravioli and truffle sauce, Teresa had ravioli with celery cream and stewed lamb. Since it was our last family meal together for a while, we followed our meals with a deconstructed lemon meringue pie dessert and chocolate mousse with pickled prunes and sherry.

It was time to get ready for the leaving tomorrow. We were already suffering separation anxiety because Scott will be leaving us to return to Frankfurt and Michele and Teresa are flying to Vilnius early in the morning.

Goodbye Dotta and Дабранач!

Another winter wonderland greeted us this morning!

We found that Karl Marx place was just 500 metres from us… it was the street recommended by Alex for cafes and restaurants.

We ate breakfast in Cafe Michel which was a modern, industrial design hip cafe. Once refreshed we set off to find Gorky Park. We walked past a lot of interesting and imposing buildings which provided perfect backdrops for photographs.

We saw a lot of cadets who walk around in squads with beautiful teal coloured fur hats and camo uniforms. There were no weapons in sight anywhere but they had a lot of pockets.

The streets were busy with traffic but there are very few people out and about on foot. This provided excellent photo opportunities, especially for Scott with his love of soviet architecture and columns!

We entered Gorky Park admiring the snow covered pine trees and the ducks scrambling towards us in the flowing stream.

After that it was time for lunch so we walked to the Karl Marx street and ate at the Grunwald restaurant. Michele and Teresa ordered a lovely Borsch, served with sour cream, horseradish and dark bread which caused Scott to have food regret. His was a lamb dish but uneventful.

We then decided to find old Minsk. It did not disappoint. The views of this well-planned town (rebuilt in 1984) are very beautiful and are made all the more spectacular with the Christmas lights. The decorations are plentiful and all very different from each other, it’s hard not to take photos of every display.

It was time for a beverage, so we found a place right in the middle of the old town and ordered a vodka tasting board each. The shots of vodka were accompanied by a delicious assortment of bread, cold meat, pickled veggies and horseradish. Amazing!

We returned home via some more Christmas decorations and lights and called it a night. Ready for more exploring tomorrow….hopefully via the cat museum!

Дабранач!

Galileo was the first order of business for today as Michele wanted to buy a new pair of boots for Europe. She made an excellent choice and then was invited to roll the dice. She rolled a six and they excitedly presented her with a large box of chocolates.

We also spent some time looking at possible gifts for Michele’s upcoming momentous birthday.

We walked back to the old town and found a cafe for lunch. The music in this cafe was all English Christmas carols. We washed our meals down with dark beers and then found our way to the cat cafe.

The cat cafe is a refuge for homeless cats and you are invited to adopt one if you like. Each guest had to sanitize their hands before touching the cats. The cats were found in various rooms and places all over this small apartment. It was very quirky.

After this experience some more exploring by foot was planned. Teresa had read about the KFC which has a bas relief sculpture above it and we inadvertently stumbled upon it on this journey. A cafe was also necessary to wash cat off hands and have a bevvy.

There was another GUM department store at this part of town so we browsed for a while. We made our way back to the main part of town where the traffic moves quickly and efficiently on the wide roads.

It was time to head back to the main square to find dinner and a drink for New Year’s Eve. We returned to the cafe from the day before and could eat as long as we finished by 8pm. The food was good and so were the White Russians and Beer Cocktails! Scott ordered goulash and Teresa and Michele had pork hotpots with mushrooms. Another side of potato pancakes were of course in order!

We then ventured outside to be entertained by a performance on the small stage. What was evident was the lack of crowds everywhere we went. Definitely a change from the NY crowds of other major cities!The whole evening was very pretty.

We then made our way home in time to see some fireworks in the distance. The Gates of Minsk were nicely lit. It was time to say ……..

We awoke in our 2nd and last day in Kyiv and looked out our windows to a winter wonderland. It had been snowing all night and the temperatures were below freezing point, leaving the place looking like it belonged in a snow globe.

We made our way to the Globus shopping centre (next to Maidan) to purchase some souvenirs. The snow falling as we walked made the adventure even more magical. Seeing the square covered in snow added to the experience. We went up to the bridge that looked over Independence Square and took more photos.

We were aware that we had to meet our AirBnB host at 11:15am so we made our way home. We really wished that we had spent more time here and would return in a heartbeat. Uber was called for a lift to the airport and this time we had no trouble with the check in process!

Belavia, the local Belarusian airline was friendly, efficient and fuss free. They even print board passes!!! Our flight was delayed due to the weather and for some reason we were one of the last to get on a bus to board so we nearly had the bus all to ourselves.

Arriving into Belarus airport, it was sparsely populated, with magnificent pine forests laden with lots of white snow. When we got to immigration at Belarus airport we were a little apprehensive because we were English speaking people travelling on Polish passports. All three of us went through at the same time, next to each other with different border guards. Michele’s guard asked her questions in Polish until Michele told her that she spoke English but was travelling on a Polski passport. They quickly established that the 3 of us were travelling together and we were let through the border and told that we didn’t even have to fill in the immigration cards.

The airport in Minsk is quite small, and while Michele and Scott tried to get Uber, it was not easily accessible with a foreign phone.

When we walked out of the baggage claim were we greeted by a multitude of adults talking at us! We realised that they were vying for our taxi fares. And then Alex approached us with promises of luxury transport in his e-class Mercedes and we negotiated a fee of 50 rouble which we later agreed was a good deal.

The trip from the airport took about 40 minutes on wide and open roads. Alex told us where the restaurants were and dropped us just outside our accommodation. This unit is situated up many flights of concrete stairs in an old Soviet apartment block. We established ourselves before heading out to find dinner.

The Gates of Minsk can be seen from our kitchen window.

Walking around we quickly realised how amazing this city really is. The streets are wide, everything is very clean. There is something quite strange about going into the underground of a city and not being hit with the smell of urine and filthy surroundings. There are a lot of shops and underground passageways due to the extreme temperatures that this city can face. The streets are adorned with stunning Christmas decorations and lights.

We could not find the street recommended to us for dinner due to all of the street names being in Cyrillic, so we settled for dinner in a restaurant situated in the large Galileo shopping mall. We ordered fried cheese sticks, beef medallions with potato pancakes and zeppelins, which are like a potato dumpling topped with bacon and trimmings. The bacon here is served very thinly but very tasty. From the restaurant window we were able to look out and compare how safe the roads all looked compared to the driving experienced in Kyiv.

Back home to warm and comfortable beds, ready for more exploring tomorrow. Дабранач!

After our day of waiting, and also due to the fact that our Kyiv holiday had been cut short, we decided that we needed a day of walking. The apartment that we were staying in was in a quiet area but still quite central to the places that we wanted to see in Kyiv.

A 500 metre walk around the corner and down the street led us to the House With Chamaeras (or Gorodetsky House) which is an amazing art nouveau building situated across from the president of the Ukraine’s office. We marvelled at the structure and took some pictures before setting off to find Independence Square. There was a light dusting of snow and icy sleet (and sometimes snow) was falling from the sky, making it all the more wonderful to walk around in.

Independence Square (Maidan) is quite magnificent and it is significant because it is the site of the peaceful protests that progressed into violent clashes and fires ending in the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution. There’s a powerful documentary on Netflix called Winter On Fire that informs on this event.

Across from the square, one of the massive structures housed a MacDonalds, so we decided that we might try a Ukrainian Big Mac. So off to MacDonalds we went. Delicious!

Bellies full, we now wanted to find St Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery. This church offered refuge to the protesters during the uprising in 2013, closing its gates to the corrupt police brutality. Although the church looks stunning in the pictures, it is hard to describe the beauty of it in real life. Quite breathtaking.

We walked around the church and found the furnicular and Volodymyr Park. From here we could see the mighty Dnieper river.

Instead of taking the furnicular we decided to walk to the Christmas markets … obviously sponsored by Coca Cola. There were mulled wines, hot soups, lots of meat BBQs, trinket stalls and people dressed as St Nicholas or other characters walking around to earn money.

As we walked through the markets St Sophia church loomed in the background. A very picturesque and festive atmosphere.

Once again, due to Wizz Air cutting our Kyiv holiday short, we could not take the tour to Chernobyl that we would have liked to. So we settled on finding the Chernobyl Museum instead. We made our way through the cobbled streets of old Kiev toward it and stumbled on some lovely flea markets. The icy rain had gotten a bit heavier at this stage and we decided it was time for a dry off and a beverage! We warmed up with hot wine, beer and vodka in a little cafe outside St Andrews church.

We set off again and walked to the museum but realised that we were hungry. So just around the corner we found a restaurant. Michele and Scott ordered borsch with garlic buns, and Teresa ordered chicken noodle soup with meatballs. We accompanied our meals with some Ukrainian chardonnay.

We finally made it to the Chernobyl museum! It was very informative and grim. There was a lot of photos and information on display and we were able to hire handheld audio guides so we could listen in English. The information was very comprehensive.

After leaving the museum, we headed to the Metro and caught a couple of trains to check out some of the famed Ukrainian underground. We got off at one station and took an escalator of over 700m up to street level. It seemed like it would never end but also was quite fast. Michele and Teresa had to grip the rail and not look back, as vertigo took hold.

Our stomachs began to grumble and it was now time to find the restaurant we had picked for dinner. We needed wifi to update our maps so we found a Jaegermeister bar hidden down some steps on the street. We were the only customers there. They were very accommodating, even giving us their charger to charge our phones a bit. A beer each and then on our way again.

Full darkness had set in by now and a fair bit of snow was falling from the sky. We found the restaurant that we wanted: Verenyky Spoiled Halia, recommended by our AirBnB host as traditional Ukrainian food. Verenyky is the Ukrainian version of pierogi and we were excited to try it! We ordered up big and ended up with a table full of dumplings, potato pancakes and vodka. Smacznego! This restaurant was much cheaper than last night’s, despite over-ordering on the vodka ‘tasting’.

It was now time to retire for the evening, tomorrow we go to Minsk. Надобраніч!

We had already lost a day in Kyiv due to our flights being changed so we were keen to get to the airport and begin our travels. Wizz Air had advised us that we could not check in online due to the flight changes and that we must get to the airport 2 1/2 hours early. When we got to the airport we navigated through to where we were supposed to be, joined a fast-growing queue and then waited…..and waited.

It felt as though Wizz air had told us to be early but had not advised their staff of this. By the time two women finally came to the check-in desks, the line was full of tired and impatient people.

When we got to the desk Scott began the check-in process (speaking in German) but it soon became apparent that there was a problem. He was given a ticket and we were told to wait at the side while he traversed back through the busy airport to another information desk to sort out the issue.

Teresa and Michele worried as we watched the queue grow smaller and the time that we needed to get to our flight get closer. When Scott finally came back we were finally able to go back up to the check-in desk and send our luggage off.

Scott finally explained that in order to check-in at the airport itself, you must prepay for this. Because we could not check-in our flights online we had no choice, but Wizz Air did not recognise this and Scott had to pay €102 extra just for this experience. Why anyone would pay extra for the horrible experience of waiting in line, over an easy webcheck-in is beyond us. No doubt there will be follow-up correspondence! This is the 2nd time that Teresa and Scott have experienced this scam. Do not fly Wizz Air!

One big plus for us is that when we got to immigration, because we were all travelling on our Polish passports, we got to pass the long lines of non-European passport carriers and wizz through.

There was another long wait at security again, and they had began to call our flight. Once we finally got to our gate we got herded like cattle onto a bus and driven out to our plane. We then had the pleasure of waiting another fifteen to twenty minutes in the crush of the bus until we were freed to board the plane.

On the plane we had to wait for another 30 to 40 minutes so all passengers were boarded … their lateness was due to the utter mismanagement of the process by this airline.

We had a comfortable flight in the last row and loved the menu which encouraged the purchase of multiple alcohol products per individual.

Kiev airport was easy to navigate and catching UBER to our AirBnb was just as easy. Driving through Kiev at night was full of bright lights, advertisements and cars ….. and more cars!

The apartment is in a quiet and safe part of Kiev (especially since there are soldiers on patrol everywhere). We are on the third level up six flights of well designed stairs. The apartment is spacious, well appointed and warm. Our host, Svitlana, around Teresa’s age, used her smart phone and google translate to communicate with us.

She had a bottle of champagne, chocolates and a fridge stocked with food waiting for our stay.

We decided to stay close for dinner and went to the restaurant next to our apartment called La Veranda. The restaurant offered a bit of a fine dining experience and we were given a cosy table by the window. Teresa ordered braised venison with ravioli and Scott had braised hare with risotto. Michele chose the mushroom soup with dumplings. It was all deliciously washed down with vodka and beer. We were going to order a bottle of wine but noticed that the cheapest was $57 Australian.

On the way home we stopped by the mini-mart and noticed that the vodka was the equivalent of $6 for 500ml of good vodka. Bargain!

The day of waiting was finally over and slumber was upon us. Надобраніч!