Latvia

June 17-19

The next stop on our whirlwind bus tour of Eastern Europe was Latvia. We were dropped off in Riga, Latvia’s capital. After spending twenty minutes walking around in a circle (just a bit turned around), we got ourselves to the train station and jumped on the next train out of town to Jūrmala. Boom! Train schedule in English!

Jūrmala is a beach town about 15 miles outside of the city. When researching this country, one of the constant recs I found online was to visit this town.

After our 30 or so minute train ride, we checked into our Airbnb. I was pumped about it.

Two reasons that I was pumped – the fact that it was a tiny house and the fact that it had a grill.

So we dropped our bags and went to the grocery store. It was time to do some grilling.

The grocery options left something to be desired, but we made do. And by that I mean Mike made do. Grilled chicken and Pringles!

After our epic grill session, we headed towards the beach to see what we were working with. On the way, we walked through town. It was a super cute beach town… of which we don’t have a single picture. It’s not clear to me how that is possible, but it’s disappointing.

The beach was also really cool. It had a lot of activities – big bouncy house for kids and basketball nets and soccer nets. But the coolest section had some child size excavators that kids could use to dig sand and move it around. It was awesome. A great family beach. Once again, not a single picture. What the heck.

We had a couple days here, and we are pretty tired from moving around so much, so mostly we just had recovery time. You can tell we’re tired by our lack of photos. We watched some tv, hung out on the beach, enjoyed town and walked around. Our only beach shots were from late in the afternoon on our second day when it was pretty cloudy.

We did get some runs in. The sand was pretty packed in down by the water which made it perfect for running. See how happy I am that my run is over?

The beach town did have its share of tourists. And with those tourists come the ridiculous photo shoots. Michael went for a run on the beach. Before leaving, two women were standing by a post taking posed photos of each other. He ran a 10k. It took him about 53 minutes. When he returned, they were still there!

So that was basically it. We really loved this town and I’m disappointed we don’t have any photos since it was such a beautiful town. To prove how beautiful this town was, and to give it the credit it is due, I took these pictures from the internet to show you.

See? I told you.