Europa City Riga hotel - Riga, Latvia     

We wanted to go somewhere for a couple of days, and found cheap tickets to Riga with AirBaltic. Airbaltic.com provides a hotel booking service from hrs.com, so I searched through the hotels and found Europa City. After reading good reviews on tripadvisor, I checked several online booking-services, but none could match the price from HRS, and we even got an additional night for free, so we paid around 150? for double room for four nights. Our plane arrived at about 2300, so we had contacted the hotel and asked if they had some kind of airport transfer-service. They offered this for a price of 13LAT each way, which I think actually is a bit cheaper than ordering a taxi on your own. Not to forget how good it is to just see your name on a piece of paper, instead of having to sort out everything when you arrive late. The hotel is quite a bit away from the city center, but it couldn't have been easier to get to it. The tram has a stop directly in front of the hotel, and you easily buy tickets at the Narvesen kiosk to the right. The tram went almost all the time, all day, and took about 10-15 minutes to the old town. The hotel seemed almost brand new. Very nice design and decorations, and very little sign of use. The room almost seemed as it never was used before. Breakfast was also included in the price, and the buffet was more than enough for us. Good selection of bread and other things, and the large plates of fresh watermelon were very welcomed. The service from the hotel staff wasn't over the top, but we didn't meet upon any real trouble. We asked for another pillow, which came pretty quick, and when our key didn't work they fixed that pretty fast too. However, this is something I feel was the same everywhere we went in Latvia. The service was good where it was supposed to be, but there weren't really much friendliness and personal contact. I guess they're just not used to it. When it comes to Riga, I found it a beautiful town. There was loads to see, and a lot of cheap shopping as well. Not to mention the cheap and excellent food we had. The city felt safe everywhere we went. We also took the time for a day-trip to Jurmala, which was OK, but very windy that day. Overall I will absolutely recommend this hotel for everyone that wants a cheap and good hotel, and don't mind the little tram-trip when you want to get to the city center.