Riga to Tallinn

In which a hotel lives up to its name

And starring Claire, Catherine and Jen

Before the girls arrived I spent a night at the Economy Hotel whose nominative determinism was immediately evident – no expense had been expended. 

Particularly not in dealing with the aftermath of what were almost certainly two separate incidents on the first floor – a flood and a fire.  It was with great relish that I lugged my bag to the apartment across town.

 

Luckily I had done most of my wandering around and sight-seeing on the first day (town hall tower, walk along bits of the ancient city wall, beetroot soup) and located a series of courtyard cafes because after that it was pretty much walking, eating and drinking.  

We did make it up another bit of the wall for a coffee amongst some extremely strange artwork and strolled around through the lovely little cobbled streets, wandered into shops etc.  

We had a slightly more energetic second day trekking out to the Olympic Rowing river some way out of town.  The destination was great – with a nice little restaurant overlooking the marina but the journey wasn’t brilliant as the path wound between the sulphuric sea and a busy highway. We got the bus back.  Also wandered up into the Troompea which overlooks the city and has some nice cocktails bars on the slightly precipitous streets where you can sit and watch the Segways go by.