Latvia’s Impressive Riga, Riga, Latvia (B)

As there are no real borders these days, you’d think that travelling across the border from Estonia and in to Latvia and on to Riga would be easy and without any hassles, right? Wrong!

The flash new train (€4.40) from Tartu bound for Valga (Estonia’s border to Latvia) departed at 10:20hrs to meet the connecting train (with a 12-minute wait time between trains), which should be waiting to whisk us away across the border to Latvia and on to Riga.

Once in Valga, the Riga train should have been waiting. However, there was no Latvian train anywhere to be seen, although the board stated it should be on time and waiting. So, stranded on the platform in the cold and snow, we trudged our 30-kilo packs inside the station to find out if a train would arrive sometime today.

A guy from India was also stuck at the station with us but he was going to Riga to catch a flight to Australia as he had a study Grant for 3 weeks in Sydney (small world). Eventually, he couldn’t wait so decided to take a taxi to Riga as he didn’t want to miss his flight. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).