Riga: the "Little Paris" with a Coupon!

Riga Christmas Markets.

It was like a ghost town, except for inside the shopping malls, on Boxing Day (December 26) in London. We discovered that the Tube was closed because the employees wanted more pay on the national holiday--makes sense. What a better way to send this message than to strike on the BIGGEST shopping day in London? Way to stick it to the man and stick it to capitalism! Boxing day was also the day we were slated to fly to Riga, Latvia. After visiting the Tube station by our hotel and seeing all of the "closed" signs, we managed to find a bus that would take us to central London. We got off the bus at Shepard's Bush and discovered that ONE Tube line had just opened up at the very stop we got off...talk about good timing!


Ryanair to Riga...a flight where all of the passengers clapped after we landed...why do people do that?  Anyway, we walked out of the airport and waaaaah-laaaaa there was a Baltic Air hotel shuttle waiting for passengers. Good timing, again. We were dropped off at our hotel, Hotel Albert, where we checked in and explored the city by night.

Gingerbread cookies.

The House of Blackheads...what a name!

Let me tell you the best part of this trip...we got a SCREAMIN' deal! So, anyone who knows me, knows that I love a bargain and I love coupons. Yes, I am one of those crazy coupon clippers. But, in the past few years I have discovered the bliss of on-line groupon coupons. In Athens, Georgia I first stumbled on the groupon concept and since then I have been addicted! The good thing is that the groupon coupon concept has gone international, just in time for us to move to Europe. So, I signed up for CityDealiä (same as groupon--different name) in Helsinki, Tampere, and Jyväskylä and began receiving coupon deals by email. In addition to boob jobs, restaurants, and beauty treatments, there are even travel coupons...this is where it gets good! The coupon we used for our trip to Riga was 90€ and included 2 nights at the 4-star Hotel Albert, free wireless internet, breakfast buffet, and a 30€ dinner coupon and 2 welcome drinks. Cool!


Overall, Riga is a sweet and quaint little, or shall I say not so little, town. It is the largest city in the Baltic States and 1/3 of Latvia's population lives in Riga. We were lucky because most of Europe has an extensive Christmas holiday season, thus the Christmas markets in Old Riga were still open and selling gingerbread cookies, wool socks, warm hats and gloves, and handicrafts. Our exploration of the city took us to the bustling city market located in five converted zeppelin hangars where we bought fresh walnuts and tigerbalm, an 'authentic' medieval basement restaurant (only lit by candles) called Rozengrals, and Charlie experienced a Latvian beer tasting at Queens Public House.

Go to Riga, you will not be disappointed!