Riga Warnings Or Dangers

Riga has become well known in recent years as a venue for stag weekends. This means that plenty of venues have sprung up to cater for the needs of that particular demographic.

Now, I went to Riga in a 'family group' and encountered nothing more worrying than a few overpriced restaurants. Going out at night without the family meant the touts were out with offers to visit some of the the aforementioned establishments. We stuck to the 'normal' bars and found them fine. The lap dancing venues, dodgy bars and gentleman's clubs were left to their own devices. It is in these venues that you can almost expect to be ripped off. Internet stories abound of 250 lat drinks bills for a couple of beers, bouncers charging the same for you to leave without the aid of a plate-glass window. Worse still the Latvian police can also be in on the act and support the club gangsters and their cronies.

Taxi drivers are not exactly seen as the most upstanding members of society in any port of call in the world. There are plenty of internet warnings about dodgy taxi drivers in Riga, so the Renault Red taxis are a good idea. Getting a hotel to recommend a taxi firm and a guide price is obviously a good idea as well.

Probably the most annoying extra charge is however perfectly legit - the five Lats it costs to enter the central old town zone. It's quite a small area, so if you want to save 5 lats (about 5 quid, six euro or 270 dollars at the current rate of exchange) ask the taxi driver to drop you at the barrier and walk.

Taxi drivers of course try to charge customers on the way out as well. Unless you telephoned him then he would have paid it already and is thus trying it on.

Before I went to Riga I had read the tips here on VT about the unfriendly and rude people one where to encounter in Latvia. I must admit it made me a bit cautious and I really thinked twice about travelling to such an "unfriendly place". However, it is clear one is NOT to believe everything one read....! During our stay we didn't encounter a single unfriendly person or stuck up waitress. EVERYONE - from the middle age male bus drivers to the young waitresses - were all friendly, smiled and gave quick service.

I'm not saying that other people are wrong (they might very well have been treated badly) but I also want to tell everyone that it is not happening to everyone. We had a very pleasant stay and I'm not going to think twice about going back if I get the opportunity!

When I saw this car - an Austrian made Steyr 220 - in 1992 I just was surprised about the excellent quality Austrian cars from the 1930-ies (this car was probably made in 1937 and was 55 years old then). And I was trying to consider how this car made its way to Riga two generations ago. But when my car was stolen in neighbouring Lithuania in 1995 I made other considerations about this car's history. It became clear for me that it must have been stolen in Austria between1945 and 1955 by somebody from the Soviet army (after WW 2 Lower Austria and the part of Upper Austria north of the Danube were occupied by the Soviet Army from 1945 until to Austria's independence in 1955 so there were chances enough to steal such a car in Austria - you can guess how much Ausrian police had been able to do to inhibit that - and to bring it to the Soviet Union). I think this car is no longer running as it is seen here on the pic but restored by specialists. I found recently on the web a restored Steyr 220 offered for 140.000 EUR by a specialist for restorations of vintage cars in Ukraine.

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The biggest thievs in all of Riga. We (I and my wife) came to Riga by boat from Stokcholm and outside the terminal there were only white taxis (red taxis is more honest).

So we took the withe one, the driver turned on the meter, starting cost at 1,5 Lat. So it say on the window. We went to the Freedom Statue, taxi driver stops and says 8,5 Lat and so it is on the meter, so I asume that the taxidriver drowe with high speed meter all the time. My first rip of and I havent even started sightseeing.

WELCOME TO LATVIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'd heard of this happening in other cities but it had never happened to me before.

In the Old Town near the Blackhead's House around 7pm one evening, a guy came up to us speaking in what sounded like Latvian. When we looked blankly at him, he looked relieved and started off in English. He said something to the effect that he only had coins but no-one would take them and did we have a 20 lat note to exchange. Thinking that this was just quite bizarre, I just shrugged my shoulders and said , sorry but no. He simply wandered off and we watched him stroll ahead, interestingly not asking anyone else on his way.

It wasn't even until a few minutes afterward that it occurred to me that I'd read of people trying to palm off dead and useless currency in coins to unsuspecting foreigners who would not recognise whether or not it was actually valid coinage. And I'm guessing that's what he was trying. Ironically this happened on our last evening after a totally uneventful weekend.

Ho hum. No damage done.

The amount of traffic on the streets of the old city centre might be heavy at times. In theory the old city centre is closed for traffic. However, if you have a special permit as many of the locals living in the old town centre do, there are still quite a lot of cars driving around and the pedestrians really need to look out where they tread.

When leaving Riga International Airport, do keep an eye open for gate changes, which seem to happen at a moments notice.

Our gate was changed twice in the space of 15 minutes, and the screen was not always updated.

Another flight that was departing to Berlin changed 3 times in the same space of time.