After arriving from Vilnius 馃敆 yesterday, I had a good night’s sleep at the Clarion Collection Hotel Valdemars. We had a nice breakfast and checked out. Leaving our bags at the front desk of the hotel, we headed out to take in Riga.
We walked to St. Peter’s Church to join the Old Riga Free Walking Tour 馃敆 at 10:00 AM, followed by the Alternative Riga Free Tour 馃敆 at 12:30 PM.
Between the tours, we saw the Bremen Town Musicians sculpture at St. Peter’s Church. If you can touch all four of the animals, it is supposed to bring you good luck鈥攕omething which would be much needed later in the day. Both tours were back-to-back, so we didn’t really have time to plan lunch in between.
After the tours, we walked back to the hotel, picked up our backpacks, and headed straight to the bus station. We arrived with some time to spare and decided to get something to eat while waiting for our bus to Tallinn.
Somehow, we got confused about the timing and thought our bus was at 4:30 PM; we were waiting inside as the bus we were booked on left on time at 4:00 PM. I felt terrible; I hadn’t missed a bus, train, or plane until now, and this was a first for me. I started wondering how I let this happen, but that was not the time for introspection.
We had to get to Tallinn as early as possible because we were booked on the Viking Line ferry to Helsinki at 10:15 PM. With the original plan, we would have arrived by 8:30 PM, picked up some dinner, and then taken the ferry. Now, everything was at risk.
Luckily for us, there was another LUXExpress from Riga to Tallinn at 5:00 PM with seats available. Assuming there were no delays en route, we would reach Tallinn around 9:30 PM. We still had to make it from the Tallinn bus station to the ferry terminal for check-in at least 45 minutes before departure. It was going to be very tight.
Our bus ride was smooth, though I couldn’t really relax; I was quiet and tense. As we neared Tallinn, my anxiety increased, counting minutes and kilometers. As soon as the bus stopped, we jumped out and ran to the taxi stand. As we drove through the city, “One & One” by Robert Miles started playing on the radio; I hadn’t heard that song in almost 20 years. I spontaneously started humming along, realizing subconsciously that we were likely to make it.
We reached the terminal just in time to use the self-service kiosks. Only after boarding the ferry was I finally able to breathe a sigh of relief. It was indeed good luck that despite missing the first bus, everything fell into place. We found a table, ordered a burger with fries, and finally ate. We reached Helsinki a little after midnight, concluding a memorable weekend in the Baltics.
馃幎 One & One
馃殟 LUXExpress from Riga to Tallinn
鉀达笍 Ferry to Helsinki