Our bus pulled into the main bus station in Riga on a cold and rainy afternoon on Thursday 8 November. Fortunately our hostel wasn't too far a walk and soon we were warming up at the bar with our much appreciated welcome drink :-) Once we had settled into our room, we decided to walk down to the ferry terminal to book our onward tickets, and then stopped at a grocery store on the way back to pick up some things for dinner. We ate dinner at the hostel and then turned in for a relatively early night.

Friday was our day for sightseeing, so we had an early start. The old town in Riga is pretty small, so we grabbed our tourist guide and set out on a walking route that passed by most of the main attractions. Some of the parks and gardens, with their clean rivers and old bridges, are really beautiful. After a few hours of walking, we stopped for some coffee and cake at a cool little coffee shop down a quiet alley. Warmed up and re-energised, we carried on walking, eventually arriving back at the hostel after dark where we ate a quick dinner. Then we packed up the last of our things and made the long walk back to the ferry terminal to board our ferry to Stockholm.

We dropped off our bags in our cabin and then spent some time walking around the enourmous ship. We watched from outside as we pushed off from the pier and sailed down the river towards the Baltic Sea. Even with all our warm clothes on we couldn't stay outside for more than 10 minutes, so we soon retreated inside to the common/bar area where we spent the rest of the evening relaxing and doing some admin.