July 31, 2015
Touring Riga: Friday and Saturday
I've really enjoyed Riga. It's beautiful. There is a lot of history and culture and plenty of green parks in and surrounding the city. It isn't overcrowded, although I haven't been on the highways yet. There is quite a nightlife, with music and perhaps too much drinking. I didn't participate in the latter!
When I arrived, I just walked through the neighborhood near my hotel, which I've already mentioned is the Art Nouveau sector, and had a dinner of traditional Latvian sausage. In all honesty, the sausage itself didn't have a lot of flavor, but there was a tasty sauce over it.
My sleep that night was interrupted at about 2:30 am as people came back from the bars. The next morning the staff at the hotel told me that it was a group together, and members of a Finnish rock band, so they don't know how to be quiet. I was assured they were leaving that day.
In the morning, I wandered about the neighborhood some more, reading about the buildings and architects on my smart phone. I took lots of pictures. To reduce the number of pictures in posting, I've tried a picture collage app on my phone. You can tell me whether you like it.
Then I walked into Old Riga, and took a walking tour. The tour was directed at the "real" Riga, and did not include the old city.
The tour included the market. Riga's market is supposed to be the largest in Europe. There is an outdoor market, and also an indoor market, where the prices are a little bit higher. The indoor market is inside 5 pavilions, which were originally built by Germany as hangars for zeppelins during WW1. It sounds like they were built elsewhere, and later moved to Riga, but I'm not sure how that would have worked.
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Since it always rains in Latvia, it was raining during the tour. The guys at my hotel had been insistent that I take an umbrella when I left, and loaned me one. I was very happy to have it.
The other notable thing about the tour is that Mike, the British cyclist I had met in Tuja was there. He had also left Tuja on the rain, but later than I left. He started down the same road I took, but decided there was too much traffic, so turned back onto the highway. He said the highway developed a good shoulder before too long, and that the ride into Riga was okay. Traffic had been quite light when I left, so I guess there is some advantage to getting going early.
The next day (which is today as I write this) I went into Old Riga again in the morning. I stopped by the tourist office to talk with them about how to bike out of Riga heading to the south. There is not much cycling infrastructure, so it is a matter of using the highway to get out of town before diverting to smaller roads.
Then I went on another walking tour, this time of the old city. The stories of how the medieval walls were built, the city expanded and the walls were moved are interesting. Also interesting is that the city is higher than it used to be. Buildings were built on top of the debris from other buildings that burned. There was also a deliberate effort to raise the city, and farmers coming into town were required to bring rocks and other material to pay as a tax. It wasn't completely clear, but raising the city seemed to be part of an effort to improve defenses.
I walked back to "my" neighborhood, and went into the Museum of Art Nouveau, which I had missed when I was gawking at the buildings from the outside. The museum wasn't what I expected. It was a flat that had been restored to it's 1903 appearance, and furnished with period appropriate items. I was hoping to learn about how the buildings were constructed, and about the craftsmen who made the masks and women and other features on the outside. I asked some questions about that, but it sounds like they don't know very much about it. Photographs were forbidden in the museum, but I grabbed one in the stairwell before the entry. There are other flats and even another museum (some specific painter that I don't know) on the other levels. One of the doors has a sign for a lawyer's office.
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That pretty well filled my day. I bought some groceries, in case I need them tomorrow when I leave the city, and am trying to get organized again. It's amazing how the load on my bike sort of explodes when I unpack in a hotel room!
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