Day 44 - Rainy Riga

Colourful vege market

Today’s weather looked sufficiently threatening that, after our nice hostel breakfast, we took our rain capes with us when we set out to explore Riga. First stop – of course – was the nearby markets, which were very large and had a number of sections including clothes, fruit and vegetables (including numerous varieties of berries not sold in Australia), meat, fish and a supermarket thrown in for good measure. The fruit and veg all looked to be good quality, certainly the range of fruit we bought was all very nice. It was a bit disconcerting to see a huge fish (lungfish?) still breathing though.

From there we walked via the river front to the castle. All I can say about these castles is that they are getting smaller. From six hours to explore Prague Castle, down to 1.5 hours to explore Krakow Castle, to 10 minutes to walk around Riga Castle. And by that I mean walk around the outside. The castle itself is not open to the public; it is half taken up by the Museum of Foreign Art and the National History Museum of Latvia, and Latvia’s President uses the other half as his official residence.

The very light drizzle was showing signs of getting seriously heavier as we attempted to locate the Museum of the Barricades, but since that was proving too hard we adjourned to the nearby Museum of Occupation in the hope that the weather would improve as we looked around that. The museum was quite interesting given Latvia’s history of being occupied three times since 1940, twice by the USSR and once by Nazi Germany.

Unfortunately when it came time to venture back outside the rain had not diminished at all and the cold wind which accompanied it made the prospect of further exploring somewhat unattractive. The rain capes I had bought with me from Australia were christened at last. We decided that we would need some sustenance and our warm jackets if we were to continue exploring Riga today. Lunch was procured on our way back to the hostel where we donned our jackets and ventured out again.

The rain had actually eased off as we made our first stop at the Post Office to buy some stamps (my Mum is not up to using a computer to read blogs). We headed to the Skybar on the 27th floor of the Radisson Hotel to get a view of the city, which also managed to give us a good view of the next wave of showers moving through.

Leaving the Skybar we donned capes again to briefly check out the Orthodox Cathedral before crossing the canal which separates the new city from the old and having a look at the old defensive bulwark at Bastion Hill. Next stop was the Powder Tower, which now houses the Military Museum. The part we were most interested in here was the collection of impressive photographs from Latvian soldiers who had served with the NATO Peace Keeping forces in Afghanistan.



The Three Brothers

 The rain had finished for the day as we left the museum to have a look at Jacob’s Barracks, the longest building in the country until recently and now refurbished as upmarket offices. Just opposite that is a restored section of the city’s old fortification wall, including the Swedish Gate which was one of the entrances to the city. Nearby were the very interesting Three Brothers, three adjacent houses dating from the 1500s to the 1700s.

Next we decided to go and check out the local Cat House. No, not that kind of Cat House, but a building decorated with statues of cats on the tops of its towers. Actually cats seem to be rather common here, you see quite a few roaming the streets (and roof tops) and I am not sure how tame they all are. Some have collars, and some are certainly happy to stop for a pat, and they all look in pretty good condition.

In a nearby park we passed the Stone Head, which is a stone idol from the ancient Livu tribes, as we continued in search of the Riflemen’s Monument. This was a controversial memorial because it was originally a monument to those Latvian Riflemen who had provided a guard for Lenin, but now it is considered a monument to all Latvian Riflemen. Continuing our sightseeing we saw the sculpture of the Four Musicians of Bremen (Google it if you don’t know the story) and the very attractive St John’s Courtyard, which is a surviving example of a medieval courtyard.

That pretty much concluded our exploring for the day, so we adjourned to an interesting little eatery we had seen a little earlier in our travels. Given that dumplings are something of a Latvian speciality we tried this little restaurant where you dish yourself up as many dumplings as you want from a number of different types, add the sauce(s) of your choice and they pay according to the weight you have loaded onto your plate. We were a bit circumspect with our helpings because we didn’t know how much it would all cost or how nice they would be. However the bill for the two of us, including a drink and a little pastry triangle, came to only 1.82 Lat, or about A$3.30. Needless to say, I went back for seconds! (It was all delicious by the way).

Science Academy at dusk

With our appetites sated, and the sun now out (at 7:00pm!), we opted for a detour on the way back to the hostel to see if the lookout on the 17th Floor of the Academy of Sciences Building (which looks a bit like a miniature Empire State Building) was still open at this hour. To our surprise we found that it was, and I was just in time to get some photos of the sunset. It was nice way to end a day that at one point had looked like remaining wet and miserable.