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Published: January 25th 2010
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Riga - Old Town
Hanseatic old town. We came to
Riga after 4-5 hours bus trip and immidiately followed to our hostel. Luckily for us that one was located in city centre and we shouldn't had to carry our luggages so far. I must to write the issue whose I forgot to type - in all Baltic states tourist can pay by card. Terminals are widely spreaded especially in Finland and Estonia, but in Latvia we haven't met any significant troubles with payments by card. Some problems we met afterwards in Lithuania and Poland.
Riga as like Tallinn, Gdańsk and Turku had belonged to
Hansetaic League. Characteristic feature of old town are merchants tenements. These are carefully trimmed and outer facades are various (reconstitud as they had looked in XVI century - Hansa time), at some of these buildings were set sculptures or statues. Hansa guilds had based in Riga and we might find proof of it in present time. We saw a Riga's Castle (Rīgas pils) - Riga belonged to Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth between 1561-1921 and Polish king Stefan Batory developed castle to forstress. Nowadays the Castle of Riga is residence for President of Latvia and some museams. We walked around old town having a look to plenty
Riga - Old Town
Hanseatic old town. locations, we visited into some shops and we looked for some souvenirs - finally Ania bought someting, I bought a local vine-alike drink whose called Kvas. Very tasty (-: As we did in Tallinn, we visit in stylish restaurant to eat someting. It was local food and we were glad that was so tasty.
If you leave from old town and follow to north west or according the city map you will get to
Brīvības piemineklis - Freedom Monument. This monument haven't been destroyed during Russian domination (when Latvia belonged to Soviet Union). Guard of honor serve there keeping eye at monument and as we found out - disturbing of them might have very upset result. Independence is very important issue for Latvians and I'm not surprising. In this part of Europe it is normally behaviour after several decades of slavery.
We hired room in hostel a front of market place and Ania admired music. Any band played a classical music and she wanted to read a book and listen music at the same time, I understood her desire. We stayed in Doma Hostel in Škunu iela street. Hostel was nice, much better than that one in Helsinki. Riga's
Riga - Old Town
Front facade from XVII century - Hansa's time night life is very lively - especially you might hear music there - I spent a lot of time walking old town around after night fell.
In Riga the most widespreaded language is Russian. It is inheritance of Russian domination in Baltic Btates after 1945 (in Tallinn Russians are less numerous) and native nations afraid to miss their independence. Riga's mayor in Russian politician and both communities try to coexist together.
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