Advertisement
Published: September 12th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Statue
Soviet style statue in the old town A weekend in Riga
A few months ago we went to Latvia. We haven't come around to publish a blog entry on that trip until now. But we figure it doesn't matter much if we are a bit late before we publish our travel tales and photos.
We spent a total of three days there enjoying some nice spring weather while walking around in
Riga old town and a few other places. The old town is a World Heritage and is the major tourist attraction in Riga. Many of Riga's visitors barely venture outside of the city centre and therefore don't see much else of what the city has to offer. This visit to Riga was very short and we were also stuck in the tourist trap of the historic city centre for most of the time. But we did see some other stuff too and we hope it is enough for you to enjoy this blog entry on Riga.
The day we arrived in Riga we spent mostly walking around in the old town. The old town is nice place for a stroll so it is not a coincidence that it is popular among tourists. We had
Statue
More of a classic style statue in the old town. This is known as "Statue of Roland" a nice day seeing churches, wandering narrow cobbled streets, having coffee in various cafés, seeing old houses and in general just taking it easy and enjoying life.
In the afternoon we left the old town and went to a local market behind the Riga railway station. We arrived a bit late so parts of the market had already closed down when we got there. But we had a look around and we were able to buy some vegetables and fruits so we could make our own dinner this evening.
Not far from the market is one of Ake's favourite buildings in Riga -
the Latvian Academy of Sciences. It is a magnificent building in a style that is sometimes referred to as
Stalinist architecture. Ake has a soft spot for this kind of architecture, having before seen similar buildings in Moscow in Russia and in Warsaw in Poland. Now he is happy to add the Latvian Academy of Sciences in Riga to his "collection".
On the second day in Latvia we decided to leave Riga for a few hours. We went to
Jurmala, a seaside resort not far from Riga. We were in Riga in early May so swimming was not really
Powder Tower
The so called Powder Tower in the old town on the agenda. On the beach we saw three or four who were swimming so it was possible to have a dip in the ocean. But since we are neither polar bears nor walruses we thought it was better to stay on dry land.
The first place we came to in Jurmala was what is best described as a "health park". Our guess is that the park is part of some kind of health centre or health spa but all we saw was this park. The reason we call it "health park" is that there in the park are several installations designed for people to stay fit. There is a large playground with several different carousels that you had to use your body in various ways to make go round. One of them you operated by walking on it. We didn't get tired from using that but we had to focus to keep the balance. It was good training on coordination skills.
In one of the other carousels we had to reposition the centre of gravity to make it spin. This carousel could be described as a combination of a swing and a carousel. Using that one was
House in the old town
Not all houses in the old town are actually old. This one is though like working in a gym.
In another section of the playground there was the largest
jungle gym we have ever seen. Climbing to the top of that one is good exercise.
In the park there was also a roller skate road. The road had pictures of roller skates painted on it so the purpose of the road was obvious.
What made us think that this was part of a health centre rather than just another city park was first of all the quality of the playground and the road. The road surface was of a specific kind that felt like it had been developed especially for training purposes. The equipment in the playground was all high quality and it was obvious they had spent a great deal of money on it. It was also obvious that the equipment was designed not only for playing but also for exercising. But what really made us think of a health centre is that the playground seemed to be built just as much for grownups as for children. We tried out parts of the playground and we had good fun. Grownups can have a lot of fun playing in this park and
Swedish gate
This gate is called Swedish Gate and is one of the city gates in the old town while enjoying themselves they also get fit.
Jurmala has been a seaside resort for maybe a hundred years. When we walked around the rest of Jurmala we found it interesting to see how the different eras have made Jurmala what it is today.
On the beach we could see a house from maybe the 1920-ies. It looks like it could have been a hotel back in those days. Maybe it still is a hotel?
Jurmala was also a seaside resort back in the 1960-ies and 1970-ies when Latvia was part of the Soviet Union. On a few different locations in Jurmala we could see typical Soviet style hotels. Some of these have closed down but we also saw one or two that are still open and at least one that is undergoing renovations.
In recent years Jurmala again has become popular as a seaside resort and many new houses are now being built. We know Latvia's economy is going through a very rough time at the moment. Foreign banks have over several years been very generous with arranging loans for various construction projects. When the world economy last year took a dip the Latvians no longer
House of Blackheads
House of Brotherhood of the Blackheads Guild in the old town. The original house was built in the 14th century but this is a reconstruction. It might be the most photographed house in Riga could afford to live in new fancy houses. So today many of these houses are empty. We looked at some of the newly constructed apartment buildings in Jurmala and to us they seemed quite empty. We might be wrong there though. Having in our local newspaper for several months read about the economic crises in the Baltic countries we expected to see empty houses. So maybe we now saw what we expected to see rather than what was really there. Maybe the houses weren't empty at all. We don't really know for sure.
When we write about Jurmala we also have to mention a statue we saw there. It is a statue of
St George when he is killing the dragon. St George is supposedly the hero here and the dragon the villain. This statue did not really support the story though because the dragon doesn't look evil. He only looks surprised when St George is trying to nail him on his spear. You can almost hear the dragon saying something like "Why are you so mean to me, friend? Why are you treating me so bad for, friend? Why are you trying to make a
shish kebab out of me,
friend? I don't want to hurt you, friend. I only want to be your friend."
After having been in Jurmala for the better part of one day we went back to Riga again. There we spent some time in the city centre before we went to bed.
The last day in Riga we went to a village named Salaspils. There we visited
Salaspils Concentration Camp. Salaspils Concentration Camp was built by the Germans during World War II. Today there is nothing left of the concentration camp itself. At the site there are a number of memorials such as statues and plaques to commemorate those who perished in the concentration camp.
When we came back from Salaspils we spent a few more hours in Riga before we headed back home.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.082s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 12; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0302s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb