We arrived in Riga after a fitful night's sleep, being woken at 3.15am for the border crossing between Russia and Latvia.

We were quite lucky as we had the whole 2nd class carriage to ourselves, and even watched a couple of movies on offer on the in-train entertainment.

First stop, Maccas (don't judge) for free WIFI and working out where the hostel was (it was actually above the Maccas), then off for more coffee and to a free walking tour.

Riga was almost like a holiday, within a holiday as there was the luxury of English spoken everywhere (people smiled more readily too!!). That's the thing, travelling somewhere like Russia where it is essentially like a Britain/Australia/US, where people don't have to learn a second language, as a tourist you realised how lucky we are when there is English available and how it shouldn't be taken for granted. It made me think of Russians who come to Australia and how we have nothing for them. At least in Russia their train website, the ATMs and other places do have English.

Got to say though, Russia seems to have caught on to the joys of a flat white coffee before Latvia.

Anyway, we joined a big group of people for a the free walking tour - first the alternative one, taking us through the market, the old Jewish district (and subsequent Ghetto during Nazi occupation) and merchant/warehouse areas. We remarked afterwards that there were almost more tourists on the walking tour than we had seen in total in Russia (since Lake Baikal). It was a bit strange. There were a LOT of tourists in Riga.

We had lunch with a random English lady from the walking tour who was about to walk out of a place to eat as she didn't fancy eating alone (not sure either of us even caught her name). So we adopted her for lunch and had a bit of a chat. She was incredibly well travelled herself, but we were able to tell her how much we enjoyed Mongolia and recommended it. So we got in a decent brag.

Second day we were looking round the Old Town on our own and on another walking tour.

Most amusing story told during the tour was about a local merchant who was not allowed into the Baltic German run guild, therefore he built a house opposite the guild house and apparently the cats on the roof used to have their bums facing the guild as the owner was bitter. When he was let in the guild he turned the cats round.

It was then a cocktail instead of hiking up a church tower (and paying for the privilege) and the Art Nouveau district, which makes up about a third of the central district and to be honest, I thought was more impressive than the reconstructed Old Town (a lot of the Old Town was destroyed in WWII).

The hostel wasn't amazing, but accommodation is expensive, however we are still in a private room, so can't really complain (well too much anyway).

The one thing the walking tours taught us about Latvia, was that it's history was one of being ruled by other empires: the Baltic Germans, Lithuanians, Swedes, Russian Empire, Germans and the Soviets. Both walking tour guides were quite candid about the low wages, high cost of living and how there was a massive brain drain amongst the young, with a lot of people leaving after Uni to work in countries where they could earn more.

Neither walking tour painted a positive picture of current Latvia.

We did go to an interesting museum regarding Latvia and its struggles during the First World War and during the brief period of independence in 1918 before the second world war (the Latvian War of Independence) and Nazi occupation, before the Soviets came in. A new perspective to this period in an area I didn't really know about.

Luke found a great way of getting between Latvia and Lithuania. We would take a day trip going from Latvia to Lithuania, stopping at a couple of castles in Southern Latvia and in Lithuania, the Hill of Crosses before dropping us to our guest house in Vilnius.

The first castle wasn't that interesting, and was in the process of being restored. A lot of empty rooms.

The second was Rundāle Palace, a mini-Versailles built by Germans, and made more lavish by Russians (the family of Catherine the Great's lover Count Zubov). It was damaged during the Latvian War of Independence and WWII and used as a school by the Soviets (but also partially restored by them).

SO many tourists, but still nice to wander round the lavish over-decorated rooms and the lovely Italianate garden. A bit different to everything we had seen to date.

Anyway, with our first nothing (EU) border crossed, we made it into Lithuania.