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Today we had to get up rather early (5am) to get ready so we could meet at 6am to walk to the local bus station and catch the 7am bus to Riga. Now the Eastern European buses are nothing like the Indian Buses which were my most recent bussing experience. The first difference was the fact that there are individual, allocated seats for each person, there weren't 200 people trying to get onto a bus that has a capacity of 50, the seats recline, there was a toilet on the bus, and most surprising of all, the bus was enabled with WiFi. This all made for a very pleasurable 4.5 hour bus journey. The country side between Tallinn and Riga was just lovely as well. It reminded me a lot of driving in the forests around Taupo.
When we got to Riga we headed straight off to the local markets to get a bite to eat. Before we decided on where to eat we had a bit of a wander around the market stalls themselves. We decided after looking around a few of the stalls that the market in Riga must be where all the old 80's clothes in the
world went to get a second lease on life. The clothing and fashion that they had for sale (and that people were buying) was just truely awful). There was also the full compliment of the red rinse brigade. Our guide told us today that apparently the Latvians (and for that matter probably the Estonians and the Russians) actually think that the red hair looks really attractive. I just can't see it. You have to understand that this hair is not your normal shade of red. We are talking about red wine red hair. The markets were fantastic, but actually a little bit scary and our initial impression of the Latvians was of a not so attractive bunch of people. However, we did manage to find a fantastic place to have lunch in the market. We ended up having a pork kebab with some brown bread and some coleslaw. And it only cost us $5 for two people. Brilliant. We also managed to pick up some delicious pastries for 40cents each. And I purchased a new pair of sunglasses so I could alternate between my 'bug' glasses and these new ones to try and get of my tan lines that currently
run right across my checks.
After lunch we all met up again and headed off for a walking tour of Riga. This turned out to be a 3 hour trip through both the new and old Riga and was just lovely (if a little bit cold). We saw the lovely Art Noveaux buildings, the Opera House, the gardens and the creek, the cathedrals and russian orthodox churches, the guild houses, the cat house. the Blackheads house.... you get the idea.
Some of the buildings have an interesting history. Since the 15th century the blackheads house was used by the blackheads sociatey, whose patron was St Mauritius - hence the name blackheads. The name blackheads house was only introduced as late as 1687, while the blackheads themselves only managed to achieve onwership of their building in 1713. Interestingly only the tradesmen who were not married could be a member of the fraternity. The building was totally detrosyed in 1941 and was rebuilt again in 1999, so it looks all new and sparkly.
After we had been walking around for 3 hours in the rather cold biting wind we were all a little bit desperate to sit down and have
something to drink. Luckily on the walk we stumbled across a lovely town square, so when we finished the walk at the house of the blackheads we headed back to this square to get something to drink and eat.
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