Day 3 - Paris - Riga

Dear all,

 

I am writting this post on the Wizzair flight, somewhere between Paris and Riga. It is not everyday that I have the chance to fly, but if I could I would make it every single day of my (long hopefully!) life!

The day did not start that early in the morning, afterall night yesterday was quite long and due to the fact it is Saturday, should taste good for Isabelle to sleep longer on the weekend!

A bit more time chatting, while preparing to leave the flat (this time for good), and I must say that was an absolute joy to have met her in Paris! Isabelle, thank you so much for everything. I guess we will see each other again, somewhere, somehow! Cheers!

 

I thought I would meet Nicolas today, a friend of a friend of mine that would host me if I could not find a hostin Paris. In fact we did not meet, as being online is not that easy when you are travelling and when I called he and his surfer were somewhere in the museum and could not pick up.

I seized the hint of Jean Phillippe and went to the Sacre-Coeur. I took the metro, but surprisingly for me, it is not underground but a line above surface.

Le Metro à Paris!

On the street from the metro stationto the Sacre-Coeur there are a lot of people trying to cheat (I guess!) the tourists. The scheme is something like this: they have a table and three black disks on top of it. Then, the "dealer" shows the under part of each disk (one at a time) and 2 of them are black, and one has a white mark. After showing it a few times, they spin the table not that fast, so it seems easy to know where the white mark is. Around the dealer there are 3 guys and girls betting, showing how profitable can be that street game. You have to bet 50Euro and if you win you get 100 back. The catch is that they are "working" together and when the tourist gambles, all the disks are only black (the speed of them changing the disks is really impressive). I was making a video of it, but one guy approached me from my right side and told me (no videos, just pictures). As I did not want to get any troubles, I just left.

As soon as the police arrived into the street, you see loads of them running :)

Well, the Sacre-coeur is a church built on the top of a hill, so the view over there is quite nice.

Peter Lamb @ Sacre Coeur

No way I was going to climb all those stairs with my bag. They have a funicular, a APM (Automated People Mover) that takes people up and down.

The APM @ Sacre Coeur

I spent some time at the top, just enjoying the view and talking to the girl who was playing some music there, but I totally forgot to take a picture (amateur blogger!).

At the top of the hill

Sorry for low quality, but it is just to show how Pompidou center was / is a out-of-the-box architecture

Well, time flies when you are having fun, so soon it was time to head to the Metro, go out at the Arc du Triomphe and walk down to Porte Mailot, where the buses to Beauvais aiport departs.

Peter Lamb @ the congress center, Paris

The bus ride towards Beauvais airport takes about 1h15 and costs 17 Euro (15,90€ if you buy it online)! The buses are comfy and quite new, so if you find a fare that is coming to BVA at decent time, go for it!

My ride towards Beauvais Airport

It was my first time in that airport and I was surprised how small it is! Anyway, it was by far the cheapest f

Ight I could take from Paris to Riga and I had the chance of flying from a different airport and a different airline for my count! :)

The flight is operated by Wizzair, the largest low cost carrier of the central and eastern Europe. Well, it is basically a Bus, they have a quite large feet of modern A320 aircrafts and loads of destinations, so probably I will fly with them somewhen in the future!

My ride to Riga

Peter Lamb boarding th aircraft

 

The flight was smooth and I've landed in Riga just on time. Actually Wizzair has an option while booking your flights that you can pay 10€ extra and if they are late (I guess that is over 1 hour) you get 100€ back. I did not use this option this time though :)

Arriving into Riga airport on a summer night feels great! Last time I have been here was in winter and I must say that the summer heat tastes very good!

Riga - European culture capital

As soon as I went out of the airport, Marta was waiting for me and some of her friends gave us a ride to Lielvarde (a rather small city about 50km SouthEast of Riga). There is a huge party going on in there, that happens once a year. Basically there are some bands playing latvian and international music and some DJ's all night long.

The atmosphere is really cool there, nice food and booze :)

Party time!

Party!

What is strange is thst the light comes up at around 3AM, so the party goes on during "the day" (which is very strange for us Portuguese).

We came home at about 4:30AM and yes, it will be a bit of hangover tomorrow.

We were hosted by Marta's friend, Gunta! Cheers!

Going home, after some heavy party, at 4:30AM! Morning already!!

That is all for now folks!

 

Best,

Peter

 

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