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Arriving in Riga at 23.30 we had a walk around the old town where we found some good places to eat and drink. On our first day we visited Jurmala which is situated on the coast approx 20km from Riga, the drive from Riga to Jurmala was fairly straightforward and as we arrived in Jurmala we saw a tourist information so parked the car and went in to pick up a map of the area. Jurmala has a white sandy, blue flag beach which is over thirty kilometres long so we headed down there for a stroll which was quite pleasant when the sun was shining but chilly when the sun was hidden by clouds. As we were walking back from the beach through the town centre we called in the pinguin coffee bar on Jomas iela for drinks and a bite to eat, a coffee and a small plate of prawn salad cost about 1.50 lats (1 lat roughly equals 1 pound). From Jurmala we drove west along the coast occasionally stopping to have a wander along the beach.
It was interesting to see as we drove around that the lakes had still not thawed out and although the ice was softening it was still three to four inches thick
As we were returning to Riga we called into a roadside restaurant where i had a cheese and bacon salad for just two or three lats.
On day two we decided to drive down to Lithuania but due to a combination of the poor map reading skills of the navigator :-) and almost non existent road signs, not forgetting the atrocious condition of some of the roads around Riga we spent the first three hours driving round in circles just to end up back in Riga :-(
Eventually we managed to find a road heading south towards Lithuania and after a while we made it to the border check point where it was necessary to show passports and car registration documents (that's the first time I've ever had to do that in Europe when travelling by road) finally arriving in the small Lithuanian town of Joniskis.
It was a few degrees warmer in Lithuania than it was in Riga, our first port of call was a small bank to get some currency, as the bank clerk could speak no english and I could speak no Lithuanian I held out a twenty pound note which she exchanged for 97.80 lits. We had a walk around the town but as there was nothing much of interest we decided to drive further south and came across a nice looking roadside restaurant.
As we looked through the menu we couldn't believe the prices were really in lits as everything seemed so cheap, we weren't too hungry so chose a dish that was described on the menu as stuffed potato
and also a dish described as potato pudding
As well as the food we had a bottle of water and a coffee, the bill for the four items was 16 lits (that's a little over three pounds)
We'd considered visiting Sigulda in Latvia on our third day but instead opted to drive north into Estonia, today it only took two hours of driving round in circles before we managed to leave the Riga area :-)
When we eventually got onto the coast road heading towards Estonia we found there were long stretches of newly built road much much better than the road to Lithuania, but there were also many sections of road works continuing which meant many sets of temporary traffic lights to slow us down. Once we'd crossed the border (again having to show passports and vehicle documents) we headed for the coastal town of Parnu where we stopped at a bank and offered £40 and were given 883.50 krooni.
We headed for the beach, the temperature was much colder than in Riga and the sea was still partly frozen around the edges.
We were a bit pushed for time so decided to eat in a serve yourself cafe within an edge of town retail park we had soup and bread, these bowls were full to the brim before we started eating it.
The cost of two bowls of soup, two bread rolls and three slices of bread was approx 60 krooni that's under three pounds, the cost of a coffee and two very nice desserts was similar.
Heading back towards Latvia I filled the car up with petrol at 14.60 krooni a litre (about 65p a litre). The roads in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia that we drove on had some very long flat stretches and it was necessary to keep an eye on the speed as we saw many police patrols and several cars having been stopped, the 50km limit in built up areas seemed to be rigidly enforced.
