The history center of Riga, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Latvia is situated between two other Balkan countries, Lithuania and Estonia. More than half of its land is forest and the Baltic features of its women are in great demand in the modelling world.

We flew to Riga with airBaltic on Saturday, May 18, 2019 at 9:40 AM and arrived at 13:05. A fixed rate cab ride (30 euros) took us directly to our Grand Palace Hotel.

After dropping off our luggage in the room, we walked to Radisson Blu Hotel Latvija to pick up my bib. Take note there are two Radisson Blus in the same street. The correct one was at 55 Elizabetes street.

Bib in hand, we walked around the historic center, a UNESCO heritage site.

It was an early dinner and bed that night to be ready for the race.

We woke up early to have breakfast before the race. Champagne was available!

After stuffing myself, we headed out to the race start just a block away. I met up with my friend Jim. We first met him at Mont Saint Michel in France. We didn’t get to see each other but we ran the Amsterdam marathon in the Netherlands that same year, and met up after the Swiss City Marathon in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Race start was at 8:39 AM with a six hour time limit. After the race, we took another cab to the airport to catch our 16:40 flight back to Brussels. We were back in country by 18:05.