Riga & Tallinn

Two very cold but beautiful cities

By Michael Wilson

March 31^st, 2016

St. Peter's Church

We set out on the first morning and headed straight to the nearby St. Peter’s Church. You can climb the clock tower, so of course we did. As we got out of the elevator we really noticed how cold it was! There were gale force ice cold winds making the great view hard to appreciate.

Medieval Riga

Riga is an old city and you can still see its medieval roots all over the city

The Freedom Monument

The Freedom Monument stands in the centre of a beautiful park. Even though it was cold, we got really lucky with the weather. The sun was shining and the skies looked great.

Nativity of Christ Cathedral

My favourite building in Riga had to be this golden beauty. The sun was shining so the golden domes atop this cathedral really shone. You can really see the Russian influence in the architecture here.

Vansu tilts bridge

Now this was one of the most challenging parts of our trip. I loved the look of this bridge so we took a bunch of photos of it. Then we decided we’d cross it and take photos of the city form the other side…big mistake! It was already cold, however, as we started crossing the bridge, we were really exposed to the elements. Icy high winds were blowing us sideways and freezing us at the same time. We had to abort half way across and head back.

Skyline bar

The Radisson Blu hotels always seem to include great rooftop bars so we headed on up to the 24th floor of this one to try out the view of the sun setting. We weren’t disappointed

The start of a night out

The beer is good and (reasonably) cheap in Latvia so we decided to try a few. We started the evening in a Belgium themed bar with loads of great beers to taste. We moved on to a medieval themed underground bar, which had some live folk music to rock out to.

The night goes on

As we were heading home, we noticed a cool looking bar and decided to carry on with the night. After heading upstairs we noticed a band doing a soundcheck at what must have already been 1am. Before long they were on, covering all manner of pop songs. The lead singer was a massive knob but he did photo well ;-)

Zivju paviljons

The next morning we were both feeling a little fragile and we also had a 6 hour road trip to Tallinn ahead of us. Before heading off we headed to their local market where all manner of foods were on offer. It was packed with locals buying their groceries for the weekend.

Road trip!

It was now time to pick up our hire car and head north to Tallinn. The drive was incredible! The scenery went from glorious lakes to farmland and everything in between. The weather started sunny, then we’d be in a snowstorm before it cleared up again. Seeing both countries this way really showed just how beautiful they were.

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First night in Tallinn

Tallinn has a number of medieval themed restaurants but we’d heard III Draakon in the Town Hall building was the best. We weren’t disappointed! It felt like we’d gone back in time, the tiny cave was lit only by candles, we were greeted by a wench and we had to drink our elk soup from the bowl and eat our meat pie with our hands.

After stuffing ourselves we moved through a few bars before heading home just as it started to snow. We were making the first footprints through the snowy streets as we headed back to our hotel and the place looked amazing!

A day to explore Tallinn

The next morning we awoke to the sun in the sky and headed straight out to see what the city looked like during the day.

Fat Margaret

After the glorious weather of the morning, another snow storm began, so we decided to duck out of the elements and explore Fat Margaret. No that isn’t the name of a local working girl, it a former armoury building, which has been turned into a nautical museum, detailing the importance the port has played in the history of Estonia.

To the port

After finding out how important the port was, the next morning we wanted to see what all the fuss was about. It was great walking out of the city through residential areas to see the wooden houses and the new builds going up.

The port was also home to a vast set of concrete stairs which the Russians built for the olympics, during the 70’s, to show their concrete prowess. Sadly, this was an olympics which were mainly boycotted so not many people got to see them.

One last view

Tallinn also has a Radisson Blu hotel with a Sky Lounge so just before heading to the airport we took the elevator to the 23rd floor for some final views of what had proved to be a beautiful city.