Rocking and rolling to Riga

Thursday

The sun was shining as we had our last breakfast in Nida on the Curonian Spit.  Two mini vans arrived to drive us to Klaipeda, where we boarded a coach for the drive to Riga, Latvia.  The journey took about 7 hours in total.

The landscape was varied....large grain farms, mini forests, smaller farms with veggie gardens, and smaller cities with a mix of old and new buildings.  The weather too was varied..sun, cloud, cloud bursts,and back to mixed sun and cloud. The road from Klaipeda to the border of Latvia was really smooth....once we hit the Latvian border it was a little more bumpy....so much for doing the blog on the bus!

Caron & Grant from New Zealand and Jennifer from Singapore

 

Riga is very different from the cities in Lithuania.  It is larger and more cosmopolitan, but the old town retains its charm and history very well.  Taxis drove us to our hotel because Nevyana thought our suitcases with rolling wheels wouldn't survive the cobblestones.  We are in the heart of Old Town in a lovely hotel.  Within half an hour we were off to the Occupation  Museum.  We entered in brilliant sunshine and exited to pouring rain an hour later.  It was a very sobering hour reading and viewing the photos of Latvia's, and in particular Riga's history of occupation from the turn of the last century to the present.....The Republic of Latvia was founded on 18 November 1918. However, its de facto independence was interrupted at the outset of World War II. In 1940, the country was forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union, invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany in 1941, and re-occupied by the Soviets in 1944 to form the Latvian SSR for the next fifty years. The peaceful Singing Revolution, starting in 1987, called for Baltic emancipation of Soviet rule. It ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and Latvia declared the restoration of its de facto independence on 21 August 1991. ...from Wikipedia

 

To reach our dinner required another taxi ride starting out in rush hour traffic, but eventually going against the traffic.  The buffet was huge, offering an incredible choice in all food groups.  But, you paid for each item separately....a small salad plate (you filled it with as much as you wanted) was 2.8€, a piece of fish in wine sauce was 4€,  pork cutlet 3.2€.....total for one dinner including a glass of cider was 8€.  There was no one throwing uneaten food into the garbage as we see at our buffets. (the Euro has just started to be used in Latvia in the last few months, we were really happy that we didn't have to get another currency!)

A bus ride and short walk returned us to the hotel.  Opting to do some caches, (as daylight stays until about 11 pm), we followed through some of the old town to the Dome Church, the Swedish Gates and the "three brothers"---3 houses in a row dating from 1450 to the 17th century.  At most of the eating establishments, there was live musical entertainment from classical to pop to a 5 piece band playing jazzed up Latvian folk music which had the audience dancing and clapping and thoroughly enjoying themselves.  From here we headed home for some rest to be ready for tomorrow!

Russian folksingers

Friday

It was raining when we got up and went down to our delicious buffet breakfast...... We met in the lobby at 9:30 to meet with a guide....James, who was talking us on a walking tour of Riga.

We started in some of the same places that we had discovered the night before with our geocaches....but this time with commentary. James is a Brit who has been living in Riga since 2005

Riga is a world famous for it's Art Nouveau architecture.....it has 750 buildings from that era more than any other European city. All the buildings are intertesting....there is so much restoration going on in this city.......scaffolding and workmen working on so many buildings. We walked through beautiful parks.....all so clean (in fact everywhere in Lithuania (except for that first day) and Latvia has been so clean....no litter anywhere streets, sides of highways..... and the gardens so beautiful and well kept. James said they have a program where the unemployed (and there is minimal welfare) can go and get work in the parks doing work in the gardens and city to keep it clean. They can also get retraining programs free. He led us back to Old Town, all the while keeping us interested and entertained with his funny stories about Riga.

With the tour finished about 12:30 we headed for the outdoor market....The Central market is the biggest I've ever seen....the indoor part housed in 4 huge hangers that were used by the Germans Zepplins for WW!!!! And the outdoor area was massive too......fruits, veggies, meat, fish, cheese, bakery items, clothes and the flowers were amazing.....the scent of the sweet peas and freesias and roses.....sigh....I wish I could bring some home!

Nevy and a couple of others set off to buy us fixings for a picnic and the rest of us wandered through the market for an hour....then found a park to picnic.....delicious.

The picnic

The afternoon was free so Nevy led some of us to the newly opened KGB building...The Corner House, where the KGB (the societ secret police) imprisoned, tortured, killed and humiliated many thousands of Latvians over the period of their occupations. A very surreal experience to know what went on in the house that was in the middle of the city.......

We walked back towards the hotel (my feet were getting a little tired).....it took us about another hour to get back because we stopped at stores and street stalls along the way....I did a little buying and Carol did a bit of looking (finding quilting fabric is not easy here she is having to find fabric items that she can use for her next travel quilt!)

After a couple of hour with my feet up out we went again. A lot of the group went to a organ concert at the cathedral around the corner from the hotel. We decided to walk a bit and then go back to the square we were in last night with the jazzed up folk music and have dinner. Apparently the band that we really liked last night was from Russia and tonight band (really good too) is a famous Latvian folk music band.....again they had a bunch of people up dancing.

Back at the hotel there is a band playing (very loudly) outside our window.....Carol is asleep....I don's think I'll sleep for a while!

BUT.....I LOVE RIGA!!!!!!!!!!!!
PS I wanted to add more pictures but the wifi keeps shutting down....so it will have to wait.