More Former Russians

My hotel did not offer any breakfast, or even a cup of coffee. There was a sachet of a special Nescafe which I decide to give a try. I like strong black coffee: what I got was weak creamy coffee with lots of sugar and chocolate. Added to the Tallinn drain system. No cafes in my local park - well, not opening until 9.30 (and the robot mower was taking a well-earned nap) so I went down to the port. Did find a single cafe open. They grumpily made me a coffee but I realised that the other people in the cafe were drinking beer at 8am.

Made me a bit nostalgic for Brentford, because there were a number of impressive buildings by the port under construction. Except there were no cranes, concrete lorries or happy workers in sight so appear to be under non-construction, a situation of which we are only too familiar.

Don't know if you can see, but even here there are flowers everywhere in planters, and even wildflowers amongst the grass that has been grown between the tram lines.

I had some time over so I went up to the centre of 'old Tallinn'. This was the perfect example of an area where the ancient narrow cobbled streets should be out of bounds to private cars like mine.

Despite that it was really charming and quite busy. This is a memorial to a writer: nice stonework, lovely planters, and a few of the hire scooters which are everywhere in Tallinn and (as I found later), in Riga.

Perfect cafe, too late!

Then I hit that lonely road again. About 3-4 hours to Riga. It is an exceptionally straight road, mostly with a 90kph limit which I interpreted as about 58mph. Most people were at the same pace and in huge convoys because few overtook. It was fine, and generally quite relaxing, though at one place they were replacing a bridge with a 30min wait in a traffic jam.

Trees just everywhere

And I did not see as much as a village in Estonia apart from Tallinn.

Getting into Latvia - no visible border except a derelict customs building - it got a bit lively, especially what seemed to be a kind of holiday park. I was near the Baltic Sea and at one point I went into a car park to take a look-see.

Not like Benidorm but the beach is lovely (and huge) and there were a few spartans bathing and a couple sunbathing. Particularly optimistic as there had been little sunshine and quite a lot of drizzle today until late afternoon.

So Riga.

Massive river (or sea inlet?). My hotel is supposed to be 5* which is a bit surprising as I selected it because it is relatively cheap. Anyway a big room on the 8th floor with a good view across to the old town.

Decided to walk there as it's only a mile away across the said bridge. It has a very mild dose of the Hammersmth Bridge heebie-jeebies though this is a modern bridge and still takes 4 lanes of heavy traffic.

A bit scary because the path is reduced by barriers and it was 2-way pedestrians and 2-way bikes and scooters . I took a look over the impeccable railings and the water made me wonder if Thames Water have a Latvian operation, though I could see no solid evidence,

fortunately. A grand square, pleasing but not as much charm as Tallinn.

On the river bank I saw this:

Some people (not me) like the idea of Brentford being a riviera. Are we missing a trick with the police station? Looks like Riga have given theirs a new brand. Is the Police station Brentford's Lido?

On the other side we have this handsome building.

In my small, warped mind it looks remarkably similar to the GSK building in Brentford. If Swedbank decide to split into 2 and send Swed to Woking and Bank to Tottenham Court Road (or the Latvian equivalent) that would be a great shame.

Tired tonight and my dodgy shoulders are sore so that's all. Enjoying myself and learning a lot so if I'm up to it you will get another episode tomorrow, from Lithuania. $ new countries (to me) down, 2 to go.