Raise your hand if you had ever heard of Riga before we decided to go? Don’t worry, we hadn’t either. I had to look it up on a map and it is in Latvia. On the Baltic Sea. You must be wondering how we decided to go to Riga. That was all me. I was pursuing the in flight magazine on an Aer Lingus flight and one of the cities they had profiled was Riga. It looked nice, so we made plans.
We have friends living in Zurich, the Klisch’s, that were able to meet us, they hadn’t heard of Riga either. But were willing to go. Very good deal, as it is sometimes more fun to visit these places with another couple.
The four of us:
On a side note, I know Bryan from my adult soccer team in Seattle: Barca. We became friends before he moved to Zurich when his wife got an opportunity eerily similar to Paty’s opportunity. He met us in Germany this summer as part of my World Cup exploits. On a related ‘it’s a small world after all’ note, Bryan and another friend of ours, Dan Pullen, played high school soccer for Timberline High School. My junior year at Mountain View, we beat them in the first round of the state playoffs 3-0 in Vancouver.
We arrived in Riga late Wednesday night. As soon as we stepped off the plane, it was officially the farthest away from home I have ever been. 10 time zones from Seattle. One of the reasons I picked Riga came from a conversation I had this summer while in Seattle. I was telling someone that I liked visiting Eastern Europe. They asked where I had been and my example was Prague, Czech Republic. Whoever it was laughed at me that Prague was definitely not Eastern Europe, it was Central Europe. I got to thinking about it and deduced that they were right. What I am eventually getting around to saying is that while Prague might be Central Europe, Riga is Definitely Eastern Europe. This is readily apparent from the first time you stepped into the airport. Much of this first impression is covered in Klisch’s post that I will link to later. But to steal a concept, all the guys look like they came straight out of central casting as Eastern European contract killers. I heard they are going to make Die Hard 4, save some money and just pick a random guy from Latvia as the bad guy, he will be a perfect match.
While the guys might be a little ominous looking, the women make up for it ten fold. More on this later, but let’s just say that Anna Kournikova would fit in here, not stand out.
First view of Riga as you cross the bridge:
Not all of Riga is old:
Most of our time was spent in old town, this is a typical street in old town featuring old ladies with carts selling handmade socks, mittens or amber trinkets:
Wednesday night we went out for a late dinner, like 10:30. We found a bar with good pizzas, sports on the TV and go-go dancers. For those of you that don’t know; go-go dancers are scantily clad girls that dance on the bar. This was a popular bar in Riga, but not unusual as we found another place with go-go girls. The weird thing was that the places with the go-go dancers were still approximately a one to one guy to girl ratio. A place like this in the States or even Ireland would be predominantly guys.
As cameras didn’t seem to be allowed, these are the best pictures I could get:
Sorry to disappoint my loyal readers who were expecting better, but it is hard to shoot moving objects in low light with no flash, I did the best I could.
The other unexpected bonus was all the bars were non smoking. This really surprised me, I figured being an Easter European county you would come out of the bar smelling like a chimney. Not the case. Although the bars were non smoking, there were a few people smoking. No one (patrons or employees) really seemed to care if someone lit up. And a price of Marlboro’s was 0.67 lats or $1.25. This is in great contrast to Ireland’s 6.60 Euros or $8.50 per pack. Thankfully Ireland is strictly no smoking in any public area.
Thursday night we went to the Opera. Riga is justifiably proud of their National Opera house. And it was across the street from our hotel:
In the Opera bar during one of the THREE intermissions:
The inside of the house, everything you would expect or hope an opera to be:
The finish:
The opera we saw was called Nabuco, since it was an opera it was in Italian. But they had installed a translation screen very discreetly above the stage. Unfortunately the translation was in Latvian. I didn’t have a clue (or particularly care) what they were saying. Paty on the other hand followed every scene with rapt attention. We did buy the program so we knew the general theme of the opera, so I might have been able to follow it more closely if I had tried.
To see an opera at this world famous Opera house cost us 4 lats each. About $7.50. Needless to say it was a great value. While I will not ever be a shill for the opera, it was quite the experience and worth the trip. But just so I would feel manly, afterwards we went back to the go-go dancers bar.
Riga is also famous in the Baltic states for it’s central market. The place is HUGE. It is like Pike Place market on a steroids and human growth hormone. If they grow it, make it, import it, catch it or use it in Latvia then it is at the central market.
The market is set in and around five WWI zeppelin or blimp hangers. Above was the largest of the five hangers. It contained only meats. ALL types of meat could be found here. Pig’s feet, snout, tail, and tongue were some of the things I could recognize.
From St James church spire looking down:
The next four hangers all had a theme. They were cheese, bread, produce and lastly fish:
Caviar was sold prepackaged or bulk:
Yes, these eels are still alive and wiggling:
Some sights of Old Town Riga:
House of the Blackheads, originally built in the 14th century. Statue of Roland in the foreground:
Crests of Latvia:
These are called ‘The Three Brothers’. They show typical Riga architecture. The white one is 1400’s and the oldest stone house in Riga, Yellow is an architectural museum and the last house is from the 17th century.
Dome Cathedral:
This Cathedral houses the fourth largest pipe organ in the world. The organ was installed in 1884, at the time it was the largest in the world. The cathedral dates to 1211. There are many noticeable cracks in the ceiling and walls. It has been placed on the Unesco ‘monuments that are in structural peril’ list. So the money from that should help shore it up as it was apparent that the cathedral was not 100% structurally sound. On Friday night when the Klisch’s arrived we had bought tickets to a concert to hear the organ. While the sound and the acoustics were impressive, in the end it was a classical music organ concert. We left early. But for only 3 lats (less than $6) the experience was worthwhile.
Famous Clock:
So what did you do in Riga?
This is it, walk around drink in the atmosphere and take pictures.
Swedish Gate, the last of the old city walls that were put up during Swedish reign:
Paty and Cheryl in front of St. James:
Relaxing in the hotel lobby:
The hotel we stayed in was called the Hotel Riga. An old inner city hotel. The furnishings were definitely a little outdated, but the lobby bar and all the public spaces were very grand. They were so proud of their hotel at one point on Saturday they stopped Bryan from taking pictures. We think it might be because they had a flower display and flag centerpiece for the independence day. But I would stay there again. Riga is pretty small and this hotel is nicely located in Old Town. Never for the four days did we think about taking a cab or any type of transport other than our own two feet. Taxis to and from the airport was the limit of our transport expenses.
One added bonus is we ended up being in Riga during Latvia’s independence day. It was a nice added bonus as there was a lot going on around the old town. The president even made an apperance to drop flowers at this monument:
Security was stepped up for the event:
It is hard to capture the essence of the occasion on camera, but there were at least two processions that occurred on Saturday the 18th. The first in the day was somber with the flowers where the president was present. The other was more of a candlelight procession to the same monument. We stumbled on the head of the candlelight procession:
This went on for quite some time:
Again, back to the monument. But this time with candles in leiu of flowers:
We spent the rest of the night chilling in a few bars:
Typical Latvian girls:
Bryan trying to decide if it was okay to go home at 1 AM (he did), while Paty and Cheryl are trying to figure out if it is okay to let Bryan go to the hotel by himself and go to another bar (it was okay and we did):
We said goodbye to the Klisch’s at a decent hour on Sunday as their flight was at 3 PM and ours was not until 9 PM. Feeling like a million bucks after four nights out in Riga, we decided to walk around the city and see a few sights outside the Old Town.
We stumbled, literally, upon this church. I think it was recently reopened as it was not in any of my guidebooks:
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src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger2/6500/1064/400/183616/IMG_1882.jpg" border="0" alt="" />We went inside, I think it was an Orthodox Religion that is popular in Riga because there were a lot of locals crossing themselves vigorously.
Statue of Rainis:
Another cool building:
View of the Old Town area from the bridge:
One fishing boat on the river:
One fisherman on the shores, using what must be the largest fishing pole known to man:
View of market from the bridge:
View of old town from across the river:
In summary, we loved Riga.
The city bubbles with charm. I feel like we ‘found’ Prague as a tourist destination 15-20 years ago before it became crowded. We spent four, very long, nights in the city and not once did we not feel safe. There were virtually no beggars on the street. And while I am sure they have homeless people, you can find them much easier in Seattle or even Spokane than you can in the heart of Riga.
We did not go to the beach area, called Jurmala, but it is a string of resorts and small towns only 12.5 miles outside of Riga on the Baltic sea. They have a abundance of spa style resorts. Including a spa hotel that was rated by Forbes Travel as the third best spa hotel in the world!
If you are into Eastern European charm or you are trying to decide where to go on your stag, Riga is definitely for you.
These guys were most likely on a stag:
The city exudes personality. Surprisingly when you consider this was a Soviet state (part of the USSR) only 15 years ago English was never a problem for the duration of the trip. We certainly did not speak Latvian, but had zero communication issues.
If you are into the nightlife, Riga is for you. There are gorgeous women aplenty out every night. It is worth mentioning that you get the impression that a large percentage of the Latvian women are looking particularly for foreigners. Latvia has only been in the EU since 2004, before this there were more travel restrictions. There was no travel before 1991 as the only airline allowed into Riga’s airport was Russia’s Aeroflot. These facts just reinforce the notion that Latvian women are looking for foreigners. If any of you reading this find yourself single and tired of the dating scene, the local English language tourist magazine I picked up advertised no less than four Latvian ‘marriage agencies’. You could do a LOT worse. This is not just me talking, you can ask Paty or Cheryl. It was almost freaky how genuinely good looking a very large percentage of the women were. Not just the girls at the bars or clubs, but the hotel receptionists, the waitresses, bartenders, shop clerks, etc…
If given the choice I would probably still prefer Prague, it is bigger with more to do it seems, but Riga 100% makes my ‘European Top 10 Cities‘. Incidentally this is the title of a blog post I am working on. Mainly just kicking it around in my head but when I get some time and an internet connection that works I will get that post done.
All this same info, but from a different perspective can be accessed by Bryan's blog. It is very good and includes massive info on traveling in Europe.
Riga Post from KlischEditor’s note not related to Riga trip: We got our home phone line fixed today. So we have a working Irish number. The internet is still not working. No word from NTL. I did find that our apartment is wired for DSL from the phone guy. So I am going to sign up for that and ditch the cable modem. But it will still be a week or so. So I typed this entry at the apartment and am heading back to back to Mocha Beans. I will download all the pictures then upload the post. Exciting stuff!
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