The Baltic Trip Continues

Art Nouveau building detail
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We arrived in Riga in the middle of the day after a not bad trip on the bus from Estonia. We walked for what seemed like an eternity with our bags to the hotel but I'm sure that it was less than 1.5 km.

I ended up with a really nice room with a double bed and heaps of space so I felt lucky. We dumped our stuff and headed into town for some orientation.

We started off at the market to get some lunch and have a look around. It's a funny place that is in and around five giant zeppelin hangars that were never used. We had some traditional Latvian food (like Russian mixed with German) for a couple of dollars.

Art Nouveau building
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For some completely inexplicable reason the Latvian currency is really strong and one pound equals one lats. Thankfully things are a lot cheaper in Latvia than England.

The Old City in Riga is quite small and bordered on two sides by parks and one by the river. There has been a town in the same spot since the 9th century but the stone town was built in the 12th century. The first building was a stone church built by Bishop Albert who had been sent from Germany on a crusade to convert the heathens in the Baltics. Within 20 years a lot of buildings had been built around the church and the fortress constructed.

They had an interesting problem when it came to building the city in Riga, a lack of stones. To combat this, they made all visitors to the city pay and entry toll in stones and paid all death taxes in stones as well. This gave them the materials needed to built the fortification wall around the town. They also used the ballast materials that came in ships to the port to build things and the Anglican church is completely built with bricks from England.

The city became Lutheran during the Reformation so most of the current churches are very plain. There are quite a lot of Russian Orthodox churches still and they are much more ornate.

A lot of buildings in the town were built by the Germans as the town belonged to the Hanseatic League for a long time. The most ornate is the House of Blackheads. It's not called that because of their lack of skin care but because their patron saint was St Mauritius who was a moor. The current building is completely new because it was destroyed during the Second World War as was much of the old town. The German merchants built a lot of buildings in the area. They really split the town into Germans and everyone else (which didn't go down well with the locals). There were many societies that could not be joined by non-Germans the most famous being the Great Guild which has a set of very fancy buildings in town. It was made up of wealthy merchants and professionals. Even the craftsmen were split up and you couldn't make items for Germans unless you were one yourself. Only Germans could be master craftsmen as well. That was until the plague wiped out all but one of the masters and they had to change the rules. Riga also has a lot of Art Nouveau buildings spread between the old and new towns. The former stock exchange in Dome Square is quite spectacular. The streets of the old town are very windy and cobblestoned and it would be very easy to get very lost despite the small size of the town. I had no idea where we were at the end of the tour. We got to see the three little houses called the Three Brothers. They are the oldest original buildings in Riga. We went to one of the only remaining Catholic churches in Riga, St Jakob's. It has a bell outside its spire and it was used to let people who lived outside the city walls know that there was an execution about to take place. We finished up the tour next to the huge Swedish barracks (the Swedes took over from the Hanseatics) and sat and had a cool drink before heading off to dinner. We went to a Latvian self service cafeteria sort of thing that had really good food and airconditioning. A few of the group then went and sat in one of the squares and had a couple of drinks before getting onto a tram and heading back to the hotel. Friday morning I got up early and headed to the market to get some breakfast. I got a yogurt, some raisin muffins and a spectacularly good nectarine for less than $2. We walked into town after breakfast and went to the Liberty monument which is the Latvian War Memorial. There were lots of flowers around because Thursday was the anniversary of the human chain that started in Tallinn and stretched to Vilnius in 1989 to protest about being in the Soviet Union. We then walked a couple of blocks and went on the bus to the Ethnographic Museum out in the suburbs. It's well worth a visit if you have time, though check first to see if there are any english speaking guides available as there aren't many signs that tell you much. It's a large collection of buildings mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries but the oldest is from the 13th century. They have been moved from all over Latvia into the park to conserve them. They have churches, houses, taverns, saunas, windmills, farm buildings. They are all in pretty good condition and they regularly rethatch the roofs. The houses were quite large compared to the ones that we saw in Russia. They were built in a similar style though with the kitchen in the middle and the large fireplace. I suspect it was the most efficient to heat in the winter. The windmill was impressive and could pivot around on its base so that you could turn the sails into the wind to get the most effective movement. I spent most of the afternoon at the Dome Museum (next to the cathedral). It covers Latvian history and navigation. I didn't really know all that much about Riga so I learnt a lot while I was there. It covers everything from prehistoric times to the 1990s. It goes in chronological order so it's easy to follow. The building is also quite impressive as it was built by the church and then was used by the Russians as a library. It still has an impressive collection of books in both Latin and German especially books from the Reformation. I then headed out of the old town and into the new town to see the Art Nouveau buildings. I stopped on the way at a very lovely Russian Orthodox Cathedral. It had some really nice icons inside. I headed for Albert St which has the largest number of Art Nouveau buildings in the one street and many of them have been restored or are being restored at the moment. I would have loved to have a look inside some of the buildings as they had impressive exteriors. I wandered back a different way stopping at St Gertrude's Church which is unusual as the inside is painted green not white like most Lutheran churches. I also stopped and got some apple crumble slice thing at a little shop. It was so good, I nearly walked back to get another bit. I stopped briefly at the Alexander Nevsky Church which is another unusual church in that it is painted buttercup yellow and is very bright. I then sat in the sun in one of the parks for a while (it had been raining on and off all day so the sun was a nice change) before going to the Skyline bar for a drink with the rest of the group. It's on the 26th floor of one of the hotels and has great views over the city. Unfortunately they have painted the interior white and lit it well so that you can't take any photos out the windows without getting reflections in them. Saturday morning I only had a brief trip to the market again before getting ready to head onto Lithuania.