This morning when we woke up there was no land to be seen as we were not due in until
midday. In fact we were already in the bay leading to Riga but it is very
big. It is pretty miserable weather today, they describe it as overcast but
it is in fact persistent drizzle. We are glad we are not doing an excursion
today. Although if the weather had been better we would have got off and
wandered around for some photography as there is some pretty stunning
architecture (Steve -
"hasbeen" was right) around where we are docked. You can see where we are on
our Sat Nav. It is about a fifteen minute walk to the town centre, but they
are running a shuttle.
After breakfast while I was catching up with my blog, I noticed half a dozen
trucks pulling up along side. I thought at first they were delivering supplies
to the ship, but out on the balcony I could see they were on the road and held up by the
traffic lights. However when the lights changed they slowly crept across to
the other side and then continued, side by side so no one could get past, at a walking
pace. After a while they started up on their horns, all different notes and
honking at different rates it was like a modern symphony. The whole thing
lasted about an hour and then suddenly they were off and it was all over, although it took
another 45 minutes or so for the traffic jams, that had built up, to clear.
Some sort of protest but I wonder what. Perhaps we will find out tonight
from someone who went an excursion today. The cruise director called it a
transport strike, but it was only the long distance lorry drivers, the coach drivers
were still working (fortunately for the excursions) and in a strike they stop work
altogether. These were driving slow, to cause traffic chaos; it was a
protest (Traffic
jams in downtown Riga caused by protesting truck drivers).
The canapes today included port and stilton, although again we had to pay
for the port. At least we got a nice full glass of port. The
stilton had been prepared in balls and was nice and creamy and full of flavour.
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