Want to visit Latvia

Hello, my advise is only in summer. Latvia has excellent weather so warm you melt but winter from Late October to mid December is wet cold and miserable mostly and winters can be minus 34 degrees C If you unlike me want winter sports this is the country for you.Mind you it is as flat as a pancake so no skying here. With a population of under two million people and hardly any jobs one has to find work in Sweden or Riga the Latvian main city. Living in rural settings is cheaper than living in Riga but Im on an army pension so it helps.Latvia used to be cheap to live here but since being EU the costs have crept up .We are still well under British costs and houses needing renovations can be bought for under forty thousand with some land included if you are prepared to search a bit.Building materials cost about the same as UK as most are imported from there anyway If just visiting many hotels and quality guest house offer good rates and food here is about half the price of most nations. Drink also is cheap but imports just a few bob cheaper than British prices. Beer is good local made and from as little as 90 pence per litre  The money is in European Euro and in summer buses run from Riga all over Latvia.Many ex pats from many nations have chosen Latvia as home so you will not feel un welcome and the Latvians are easy with everyone if you do not piss them off with your amounts of cash.They take no correction of the way they want to live or speak and their language is hard to learn but they love it if you try hard to do speak it...I hope this helps make your mind up and one can stay three months before having to register as a five year resident. Trouble is that they want your cash about sixty Euro to sign in and a good health insurance policy is about two hundred pounds per year. Mind you if you are young that cost goes well down.You have to have the policy details with you as you go to register  and have an income of at least 340 Euro per month to stay here. The national wage flat rate is about to rise but at the time of writing anyway that information is correct. Good luck what ever you do.