Cruising to Riga, Latvia

With angst about securing long-term housing now behind us, we have shifted gears to focus our attention on meeting people and travel adventures.  Last week was a whirlwind of those activities.  First, we attended the standing 3^rd Thursday evening gathering of the American Club of Sweden.  We had a marvelous time, renewed some friendships made at the July 4^th picnic and added new names to our “I know you” list. The next day we packed our bags and sailed to Riga, Latvia.

There is a very active cruise industry plying the waters of the Baltic Sea out of Stockholm.  Cruises can be arranged from a short 12-hour sail so one can enjoy a sumptuous meal to weekend cruises to other Baltic ports.   Our Riga adventure door-to-door was a total of 42 hours!

Helen arranged our passage on an Estonian-flagged cruise shipped named the Romantik from the Tallink Line.   Inclusive of the passage, meals (which were an option to be purchased separately) and four cocktail vouchers cost about $200 USD for each of us; quite a deal for two people looking for an adventure.

We have limited cruise experience, but can say that this cruise was “fully satisfactory.”  Unlike our week-long western Caribbean cruise, the Baltic crew did not fuss over the passengers. No steward, for example, cleaned our cabin and we found no towel origami bunny rabbits (with the accompanying video of how to do it for sale) on our bed. The crew was professional, but distant.  We have no complaints regarding accommodations or food.

This cruise also provided us our first mingling with people from the former Soviet-block dominated countries of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.   We later learned, when touring the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia in Riga, that there is no love lost between native Latvians and those with Soviet/Russian roots. There is general peace among the people, but we made some personal observations.

We have grown accustomed to the mostly reserved Swedish culture where one does not call attention to oneself. We noticed as whiskey-induced songs rose from a nearby dinner table on the cruise ship that our Slavic brethren drew from a different social structure. Adventure is all about encountering the unexpected.

This cruise ship, like all cruise liners, had several bars. What we did find a bit unusual was that the tax free shop that sold candy, cigarettes and liquor had no real mechanism in place to dissuade the ‘purchase, consume, repeat’ cycle while on board. We heard over the loud speaker system in our cabin messages in Latvian, Swedish and English several times specifying that ‘consuming of alcohol brought or purchased on board was prohibited.’ It startled us to find Coke and Jack Daniels or beer toting cruise mates at 8:00 a.m. Ваше здоровье! - [vashee zda-ró-vye] – Your health!

Riga’s old town center and main tourist area is a 15 minute walk from the port.  We found that the cruise line’s allotted five and a half hours to tour this small, lovely Baltic port city was quite adequate. 
Pictured at left is a building in the harbor that greets passengers as they enter the capital city of Latvia.