We caught one of the 100s of buses that regularly, reliably and cheaply travel around Eastern Europe. Our bus came from St Petersburg and took us to the Latvian capital of Riga for €13.50 each. It took four hours and you get good wifi and free hot drinks.

We drove across the Estonian/ Latvian border through one city; called Valga on the Estonian side and Valka on the Latvian side. According to Wikipedia, in 2016 many of the Valka residents changed their status to Valga because of better welfare and higher salaries in Estonia. It will be interesting to see if we notice a difference between the two countries.

We will spend 3 days and 3 nights here in an Airbnb apartment right in the old town. We were sent a video of how to find what looked like a swish place on the website, which was a good idea. We walked from the bus station ……

…. towards the centre of the old town ……

…looking for a rather dodgy-looking alley and other images we’d viewed on the video.

And we found it ……

Then a few more steps to the building door ……

But, once we scaled the three flights of stairs we found an amazingly modern apartment including a snazzy spa.

Phew!!

We headed off to explore Riga Central Markets.

Built between 1924-1930 by reusing German Zeppelin hangers, it is the largest market in Riga, and I think possibly the Baltics.

Mick spent ages trying to work out what each cut and type of meat he could see.

It all looked very cheap.

The butchers, the fish mongers snd vegetable growers were preparing their produce on site.

I was unsure what this man was selling for €2 a bunch.

But Mick knew.

Tobacco. He’d seen it for sale in Papua New Guinea.

Mick also spotted this stall, and he has is eye on a fishing reel he says is a steel for €23.

I think we are going to enjoy Riga.

The locals love these markets and we could see why.