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Published: April 22nd 2008
We arrived at the airport in Riga on Friday afternoon. (Both Latvia and Estonia are 1hour ahead of Germany.) As we taxied to our gate, we saw an airport in need of some work. The runways needed paving, the airport terminal itself was tiny, and there appeared to be a Soviet plane graveyard in the middle of it all. Once inside the terminal we found an ATM to withdraw LATS (the local currency). Knowing a bus ride was only 40 LATS cents, we needed to break the new 50 LAT bill we got from the ATM. We walked into a small airport store which sold drinks, food, and candy. As I was wandering around inside, Romas disappeared - leaving me to pay for a 35 LAT cent roll of Mentos with a 50 LAT bill!! It's probably not the first time its happened, but they still didn't seem too pleased! Oh well. I found Romas outside laughing at me as I left the store. 😊
We caught the bus and once we were on, realized that we had no idea where to get off. Living in Germany we've adopted the "do what everyone else does" policy and we put it into
play here. When the majority of passengers stood to exit the bus, so did we. We exited in front of a large, old Russian Orthodox Cathedral (Alexandr Nevsky Church), built in the 1820's. From there, our friend TomTom helped us navigate the remaining 2km to our hotel.
Along the way we noticed that the vast majority of young women were dressed alike: mini skirt, knee-high boots (or thigh-high in some cases!!!) with very tall, narrow stiletto heels. It's really quite impressive considering the cobblestone streets and sidewalks in desperate need of repair. We recommend wearing sneakers or shoes that you won't mind scuffing the toe. We were literally tripping and rolling our ankles on every street, yet chicks in stilettos were strutting their stuff all around with seemingly no difficulty!
We were surprised by the number of casinos as well. There was on on every corner. Later we read that prostitiution is also legal, which explains the pages of Escort ads in the back of the visitor's guide! Apparantly Riga is the Vegas of the Baltics!
Our first day was not great for sightseeing or exploring. We walked to our hotel, showered, and headed out in search of an early
dinner. We had left our house at 5:30am in order to make it to the airport in Berlin in time for our flight. We found our way to Charleston's, a restaurant we had read about in the Riga visitor's guide. Romas had a really great carpaccio appetizer and I had yummy bruschetta. For dinner, Romas had steak and I had mango chicken. Romas also tried the local white beer - it's become a staple with dinner after living in Germany! Both of our meals were delicious! The exchange rate wasn't exactly in our favor - where
is it nowadays? But the meal was great and it was nice to just sit and relax after a long day of running around. We walked back to the hotel to sleep - eager to start our day early the next morning.
The next morning we got up early and went downstairs for our hotel breakfast. Buffet breakfasts here consist of more than any of the others we've had so far, but it's still nothing like and American breakfast buffet. There were scrambled eggs, sausage, bread, croissants, chocolate croissants (Romas' favorite!!), slices of cheese, meat, and oddly enough, tomatoes and cucumbers.
We had
until 6pm to sightsee before we had to head back to the bus station. On the way into "Old Riga" we walked an entire street lined with flower vendors. It smelled soooo good!!
We entered "Old Riga" at the Freedom Monument. There used to be a monument of Peter the Great here instead. In 1935, during a brief period of independence, the Freedom Monument was built using public donations. Once the Soviets reoccupied the country, they made the monument off-limits and placed a statue of Lenin a few blocks away instead. After Latvia was liberated again (this time for good), Lenin was removed (1991). Interestingly enough, the day after Lenin was taken down, the country suffered a crippling cyber attack! Coincidence? I think not. The statue is guarded by two soldiers in military uniforms from 9am-6pm everyday. There is a changing of the guard ceremony (which we missed!) every hour, on the hour. There is also a soldier in camo watching from the sidewalk. We guess he's there to prevent people from annoying the honor guard. We stopped to look at the map and realized we were only a block away from the Museum of War. We decided to start
our day there.
The Museum of War didn't open for another 10 minutes so we went into a small Amber shop next door to kill time. They had all sorts of jewelery made from amber. I bought a necklace for 15 LATS - about $30. We went next door into the museum next. There was no admission fee!! They have 4-5 floors of exhibits, but many were closed for renovation. We saw "Latvian Soldiers during WWII" and "Proclamation of the Latvian state and Liberation War" exhibits. There was also an exhibit of Lithuanian soldiers on the top floor! They are obviously upgrading the museum, but for the time being, there are very few exhibits in English. Most are written only in Russian and Latvia. It was still really neat to walk around and see the old artifacts and weapons and uniforms, but it would have been nice to learn more about what we were looking at.
We wandered around the city - which was pretty deserted in some places. We saw the Cat House. The story behind it is really funny: In the early 1900's a man was denied entry to a guild (it was directly across the
street from his home, but it was reserved for rich German merchants). So...he had statuettes made of his two black cats - backs arched, tails up! He placed them on the top pinnacles of his house facing the Big Guild Hall across the street....BUTT FIRST! There was a lengthy court hearing and eventually they agreed to admit him into the guild but only if he agreed to turn the cats around!
Riga Castle was built in 1330. From the back, it doesn't look much like a castle anymore. There are 2 museums inside but you cannot walk through the entire castle because...the President lives here! Imagine if the White House allowed random guests in to view exhibits in one end of the house while the President lived in the other side? There are also guards outside and they march back and forth before settling into a nook in the wall of the building.
We saw the Dome Cathedral, which was founded in 1211. It is the largest church in the Baltics and has the 4th largest organ in the world (1880). Pretty impressive place.
We had an late lunch/early dinner in order to make it to the bus
in time. Normally we're really good about trying regional food and local specialties...but we couldn't resist. We ate at TGIFriday's. It's the first we've seen since arriving in Europe in November and it's the first hamburger we've had since leaving Georgia. Although Italian and Greek food seems to have permiated Germany, neither has made it to the Baltics. German and Russian food prevails and, honestly, we're not too fond of German food! We can only eat so many sausages and schnitzels before we can't take it anymore!! Anyway, we had burgers and beer. Yep, we're Americans!! There was a McDonald's in town too and we didn't feel so bad about eating at Fridays when we saw that there was always a line inside!! The place was always packed!! Friday's was busy too...guess they like the idea of eating "American" food!
Our motto for the Baltics trip started here in Riga. Romas was annoyed by the brave pigeons wandering around who would practically trip you as you walked because they didn't move. "Would it be bad to kick a pigeon?" was the question we asked each other as we wandered around the next 3 days, amazed at the brazen birds
who showed no fear of humans!
While I was preoccupied wondering how women could walk in such short skirts and high heels without any trouble, Romas was preoccupied by another fashion trend: Man-purses. He was pretty freaked out by the number of men he saw walking the streets carrying a purse. I offered to buy him one so he didn't feel so left out, but he declined. 😊
As our day in Riga was drawing to a close, we headed back to the hotel to get our bags. On the way, we walked through part of the Central Market. It is one of Europe's largest, but definitely the oldest. The earliest written references to the market date back to 1201. It has changed locations a few times, but between 1924 and 1938 five Zeppelin hangars from western Latvia were brought to it's current location, providing at least 57,000 square meters of space and central heating for 1250 sellers. It's massive!!! We walked through the outdoor portion and it was great. Although they had a ton of weird items and lots of junk, they also had delicious looking fresh fruit and spices. I can't imagine what it must have been like
inside!
One of the clear differences between Latvia and Germany would be the driving styles. In Germany, honking is illegal and police ticket 49 Euros PER HONK! In Latvia, I can't even count the number of times we were honked at!! It sounded a little like Manhattan at times! Plus, there is no such thing as right-of-way for pedestrians here!! We saw one old lady crossing the street and a car blew his horn and you could hear his engine rev!!! I thought he was going to run her over!!! They don't really seem to believe in painting crosswalks either, so you're on your own out there!! We were almost hit by 2 buses, a car, and a POLICE car!!! It was hard to adjust after being here in our safe little German bubble!
Our best description of Riga would be a 'city in transition.' There are plenty of beautiful new buildings, built with creative archetectural styles throughout the city. So many, in fact, that Riga is in danger of losing it's place in UNESCO as a world heritage site. There has also been some work done to restore old buildings. However, there are many buildings whose facades are crumbling
and are in desperate need of a cleaning. There are buildings that are very obviously Soviet remnants: incredibly ugly, cement buildings with very few windows. They are eye sores and the Latvians are left with the trouble of either removing them or repairing them.
On our walk back, Romas had to use the restroom. In Europe, there are hardly any free, public restrooms so we are used to either waiting, buying something inside a store, or paying. Here, Romas paid 0.15LATS to use a bathroom that he described as "skuzzy" - and everyone is charged extra if they want toilet paper!!! You pay someone sitting in the entryway and they hand out the TP!! Crazy!!!
As we waited for our bus, we went into a nearby supermarket to get a few snacks for the 4 1/2 hour drive. We were shocked to see what resembled an American grocery store!! They had Nabisco cookies and crackers, Betty Crocker cake mixes, and a huge variety of food! German grocery stores are so weird...they have a few aisles of food and then random items like bicycles and clothes. We had fun wandering around to see what they had!
Our bus left
archetectural contrast
Old building next to new one with glass, double facade. with only 7 of us on board! It was a big coach bus so we had plenty of room to spread out and relax. We were only about a mile from our starting point when another bus cut us off on an on-ramp and we bumped him. Both drivers got out yelling and ended up spending the next 10 minutes exchanging information. During this time, we were blocking the entire ramp and the cars behind us quickly began to add up. I never imagined what would happen next: the cars started hopping the curb and driving on the dirt around us!! It was hilarious!! Romas and I were laughing that Germans would NEVER do such a thing! It's too unorganized and chaotic!! We finally left and were on our way to Tallinn, Estonia.
I'll be working to post Part 2 soon!!
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Lisa
non-member comment
Hey guys! Nice to see your photos and know that you are having fun. Looks like all is well with you both and I look forward to viewing your trips. Take care, Love Lisa