Summer idyll

What do many people does in cities which are located at seaside when there is beautiful hot summer weather outside and vacation time has started? Yes - they go to the beaches! Riga's main beach is Jūrmala - more than 30 km of sandy white beaches with untypically warm (and calm) water for our latitudes (that's because of Riga Sea Gulf effect - see the map of Latvia and you will understand). Jurmala is not that crowded nowadays as it was in Soviet times when this 50 000 town's daytime population in summer days reached 1 million. However, tourism to Jūrmala is still alive. It's interesting that yesterday besides Latvian and Russian heard also Lithuanian language there - for people from central-northern parts of Lithuania Jūrmala is closer than their main seaside resort Palanga, and the other reason could be that Palanga nowadays is sometimes just too overcrowded, thus some "smarter" Lithuanians maybe come here hoping for a bit more peaceful and relaxing beach idyll.