Due to an ingrained tendency to read up on World War 2, as one of the occupied Baltic states I had some awareness of it having being crushed between the twin dictatorships of Stalinism and Nazism. At one time a Latvian family lived in the same street as ourselves in Drogheda, while a love of Scandinoir led me to The Dogs Of Riga by Henning Mankell. Ask me a year ago would I ever go there the answer would have been hardly. Yet there we were. Courtesy of my wife who felt it might be a worthwhile adventure, so different to the summer holidays we take in warm climes.
Riga is the furthest I have ever been from home. The return flight of three hours duration was the lengthiest I had yet underwent. My sole endeavour to travel further afield was truncated one morning in 1997 at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport when I was prevented by Canadian authorities from boarding a flight to Montreal for the purpose of speaking at a university. Mountie-like and in a sonorous tone the person who checked my passport announced we have got our man. He went on to tell me in clipped triumphalist style that the Canadian government did not want me in its country. Surrounded by armed cops I was escorted through the airport to an onsite police office, my passport held while a detective informed me nonchalantly to go off and have a drink while they decided what to do. The drink lasted most of the day before they told me I could enter Amsterdam. Long story short - as I am banned from entering the US, Canada and Australia, the opportunities to fly long haul are restricted.
In Riga we stayed in the city's old quarter which Chris Hudson had assured me was worth the visit alone. He proved right. My wife is an expert planner of whatever she puts her hand to so once she laid out the itinerary I felt I should have the last word: yes love.
Three nights and two days, I cannot remember another period abroad so crammed with activity. Delightful but draining, on the Friday I had to have a siesta otherwise I would have been a grumpy bear of a companion. On my wife's itinerary was a visit to the Corner House, part of the Occupation Museum project. There the Cheka would torture and murder political prisoners. As a former political prisoner, leaving the grim building I reflected on the many who never did.
We also toured the Latvian War Museum which was a mine of information about Nazi and Stalinist atrocities inflicted on Latvian citizens. The imagination does not have to work too hard to grasp why the country has an aversion to dictatorship.
With little inclination to be essentialised as a history buff I resorted to the fluidity on offer from the confusing world of identity politics to indulge in some of the city's culinary delights. One restaurant, Rozengrāls, was in a thirteenth century cellar, lit only by candles and where the staff were attired in medieval costume. Great food, I dined on rabbit stew while my wife opted for a ham shank that would have fed Robin Hood and all his merry men.
We also visited the Christmas market and the city's chess club, each on two occasions. I did not try my chess skills, not enamoured to the sobriety required to play it, but at the market my wife joined in the traditional dance.
As always when abroad, I imbibed the city's brew. Latvian beer is strong and gives bang for buck. But for my 10K river walk yesterday morning, I relied on Connemara whisky. Not that I needed it to warm me up. Despite the anticipated chill I have been in colder cities: Stockholm and surprisingly, Zaragoza in Spain. 
Riga, an interesting city if not a beautiful one, its bleakness seemed to suggest a place still haunted by the remnants of a drab Soviet imagination.
A city that never figured in my imagination, where hockey rather than soccer, is the preferred sport, Riga now has a place etched in my memory.
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