Riga - Capital of Lativa

History is complicated around here. Riga is the capital of Latvia, a country which had a German foundation with Teutonic, Swedish, Polish-Lithuanian and Russian rule over the years and has only been independent between 1918 and 1941 and again since 1991. Yes next year it will have been independent as long the second time as it was the first! A short time in the history of many nations.

Latvia has an eastern border with Russia and Belarus (unlike Lithuania which borders Belarus and Poland) and a sea border with Sweden. It, of course, also borders Lithuania to the south and Estonia to the north. 

Riga's foundation goes back earlier than Latvia's. It seems to have been established by the Vikings as part of their network of safe places along the route of their major trade with Miklagård (as they called it), Constantinople as the locals of the time called it. It is hard for us Brits who think of the Vikings in terms of northern raiders on the land of the previous invaders the Germanic Saxons to realise the Vikings were at the heart of a wide and influential commercial network stretching from their northern lands to the centres of the known world.  

But Riga was to continue to thrive after the Vikings, as a key member of the Hanseatic League which dominated trading in the era before nation states, the 13th to 15th centuries. 

But before we look at the day in this historic town itself, more about the morning. 

Morning

I woke up 4am. I still hadn't had a chance to load up to Flickr last Sunday or Monday's content (they had been busy days). So, I got on with that. Naming photos on Flickr can be challenging, depending on how good notes I make as I go about the visits. Sometimes I have to rely on Google maps to find the names of things I didn't catch first time. But it is very satisfying when it is complete. 

The Assumption of Our Lady

The 15th of August, the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, the Mother of God into Heaven, is a Holy Day of Obligation in the UK and in many other parts of the world (e.g. Lithuania) it isn't in every region (for example Canada and, as it happened, Latvia). But as it is a day I'd go to Mass if I was home I'd planned to do so when I was here and noted online that the Cathedral in Riga has a 8am Mass, this morning. 

I walked to the church and enjoyed not being able to find it when I was only a few yards from it, the streets of Riga are clearly designed to ensure the full blast of the wind doesn't come in from the coast but is broken up with the bends and winds in the streets. If I hadn't seen two nuns, going the same way that I was, I might still be searching for it now.

I managed to find a Latvia Mass book, so was able to follow the Mass and join in the prayers. There was a small but committed congregation who sang hymns and the parts of the Mass as it is such an important feast day.

After the Mass I walked back the ten minutes to the hotel and got back just after 9am. 

Laundry

As mentioned in yesterday's post Drew planned to get the Laundry done while I was at Mass. It didn't quite work that way, but I'll let him explain it.

Co-Pilot's note:

I left the hotel at about 0740, to reach the clothes washing shop in time for opening. It was fun, dear readers. I have a certain reputation for being what some might call 'spatially challenged' - by which they mean I have the navigation skills of a rotting carrot. In order to overcome said deficiency I asked Google to give me directions and had music playing. 

What fun I had, dear readers. It felt like I was in a Mission Impossible film. I had a mysterious feminine voice whispering in my ear and my phone vibrating in my pocket every time I needed to change directions. What a thrill, dear reader, what a thrill. It was all I could do to stop myself breaking into a Tom Cruise style run along the way - luckily common sense prevailed and I decided that would look silly while dragging a case of our smalls behind me. 

I got to the clothes washing shop at about 08:15. Unlike others we have been to in the past it was not self-service. You go in, put your clothes in a machine and a woman puts them in the dryer. One can't blame her for a certain reticence in handling strangers' smalls dear readers - entirely sensible.

A fly had crept into our ointment dear readers! - a disaster had struck! All the machines were fully occupied! The rather stern woman told me 'You come back in 40 minutes', and more or less sent me packing. So I spent 10 minutes walking down the street until I came to a park where I spent 20 minutes people watching before making my way back to the clothes washing shop.

The woman was waiting for me by the machine (if you're interested it was a Miele) and under her supervision I loaded the machine. She then (these were clearly her domain) put the soap in and pressed the button, before imparting my next instruction: ,'You come back on 2 Hours. 15 euros - cash only. You no leave your case'

(Things might get a little Timey Wimey here folks). 

I then set directions back to the hotel, using some of my mobile data to have the Mission Impossible soundtrack in the background where I joined the pilot for breakfast. Case in tow!!

I waited about an hour after breakfast before setting directions back to the clothes washing shop as instructed -for fear our smalls might be set to self-destruct. I did say I was a bit hopeless at navigating, so I had my navigational aids and movie soundtrack going this time as well. Along the way I popped into a shop to buy a coke and Chunky Kitkat so I would have exactly 15 euro for the clothes washing shop woman. When I got there the woman was mid-folding our clothes but when I walked in she gave up and left it to me. Interesting this, dear readers, all the stuff that had been folded belonged to one of us, and it wasn't mine!! So I folded my t-shirts, handed over the 15 euros and...   

..... Yes, set directions back to the hotel - but with an added detour of a stop in the park midway. At said point I sat for a while sipping my coke and nibbling on my Chunky KitKat, listening to Iko-Iko (Mission Impossible 2 soundtrack) before heading back to the agreed delivery point for the package (aka our smalls).

Mission accomplished! 😀

Breakfast 

As mentioned by the co-pilot we met up for breakfast at the hotel at the mid-point of his excitements. The breakfast was delicious, but not up to Drew's standards. The theme of ongoing pickled food continued with herring, cabbage, tomatoes, mushrooms all crisp and tangy with vingar.

The failure from Drew's perspective was that, instead of the usual range of pastries of a variety of flavours (he normally has three or four a day) there were only plain croissants, not even chocolate ones. He voiced his distaste, for much of the next two days! The Omelette, that chunky lump of yellow in the final photo above, was also not up to his standard - it wobbled and was gelatinous. In order to extract it from the serving tin you had to use a cake slice to chop it - this was a struggling concept as it tried to wobble off the slice as Drew tried to lift it up. It was both wobbly and very dense - not for him. 

Riga

Back to the City of Riga. Old Riga, in which our hotel, and most of the key sites is situated, is surrounded by a moat-like "City Canal" and a park on three sides, with the Centre shopping district lying beyond them. 

The canal has replaced the original city wall. On the west side Old Riga faces the mighty Daugava estuary, so it was a well defended city from early times and also means it is very easy to get around, with everything being in easy walking distance.

Indeed, though we walked for miles around the city at no point were we further than 0.6 of a mile (850 meters) from our hotel. Hard to get ones head around when there is so much to see, but making the city an easy one to visit (unless you find walking on cobbled stones challanging - I suspect wheel chair users might be badly shaken up after a day in Riga.) 

Route

While Drew did his multiple journeys to the Laundry I completed a set of blog posts and updated more photos from previous days. I ended up up to date, but for today, so it was a useful time. So, it was 12pm before we headed out for our visit, luckily last night's lengthy walk along the canal had meant we didn't miss anything of the city.

Our route was like this (and back again):

St. Peter's Church

St. Peter's Church is the oldest church in Riga, mentioned in texts since 1209 it served the Catholic community of the port and went through a number of enhancements over the years. Taking its present form in the 15th century and then being 'remodelled' after the reformation converted it from Catholicism to Lutheranism.

Fans of Game of Thrones who look at the images in the pictures above (or go to them on Flickr) may see images that suggest George R.R. Martin may have visited this chuch in the development of his world - The Lion (Lannister), Stag (Baratheon), Rose (Tyrells), Bear (Mormont) and Fish (Tullys) are all visible here!

Riga Town Hall Square

The Riga Town Hall Square (Rathausplatz Riga) is amazing, as well as the town hall it includes the Merchant's House of the Black Heads and the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia. All would be worthy of a visit just on their own, but here together in this one square they make a great impact. I loved it here, it felt like you could walk back into any of Riga's eras of history and discover more. 

As someone who grew up with the non-PC nickname of 'Sambo' (Blackey, Black = xxx; you get it.) It was interesting to see that the Black Heads referred to in the Merchants centre were indeed adopted from natives of Africa, who were a rich source of trade and not, as I'd assumed, people of striking black hair (believe it or not I had hair once) or people who worked in mines and came out full of soot (which is probably the derivation of my surname).  Again there are many photos of the square, these are a brief selection, the full set are on Flickr.

Riga Cathedral

Given Latvia's history, The Cathedral, meaning the City's Cathedral, is Lutheran - in sharp contrast to Catholic Lithuania, where the phrase means the Catholic Cathedral. 

Of course the Cathedral was originally a Catholic foundation and the Prince Bishop Albert von Buxhoeveden was a key participant in its building, enhancement and development. In his time there was a large monastery attached to the building and our visit today include the Lutheran Church and the cloisters the monks would have used in the past. 

Cat House

I was told about the Cat House (Kaķu nams) by one of my friends in church. It was the only part of her own visit to Riga that had been memorable. It is a building built in 1909 with two cat sculptures, with arched backs and raised tails, on its roof. Legand has it that the owner of the house wanted the cats to be placed with their tails turned towards the house of the Great Guild (House of the Blackheads) as he held a grudge against its members. But now the cats' face the guildhouse. Whatever the reason it makes for a delightful site in the middle of the City. Even for a non-Cat person like me. 

Three Brothers, Latvian Museum of Architecture 

Another amazing feature of Riga are the houses called the Three Brothers. The title (and the way it has been adopted elsewhere - the Three Sisters in Tallinn, the Four Brothers in Stockholm) suggests it might be a marketing ploy, but the buildings are worth seeing. Together they form the oldest complex of dwelling houses in Riga. 

The first is the oldest, dating from the late 15th century. The second dates from 1646 and the last of the three was built in the late 17th century. and follows that style.

Powder Tower

From the Three Brothers we walked past the Royal Palace to the Powder Tower, which is now the Latvian War Museum. The Museum is shut on a Tuesday, but the Tower itself is quite impactful, having been the repository for the City's gunpowder in the 17th century.

The Swedish Gate

Our final visit was to the Swedish Gate which is the last of the eight gates of the City Wall remaining. It was built in 1698 as part of the Riga Wall. My own reason for visiting is that it appears in the TV programme (and book) called Dogs of Riga, in the Wallander series of books. I expected to miss Wallander this holiday, as we won't be visiting his part of Sweden, but it is nice to make the connection as we are here. 

Back to the Hotel

We got back to the hotel at 5.30pm, so our 'short' day in Riga, still amounted to 5 and a half hours, in addition to the four hours yesterday. It was very warm today, so time for a shower and change and get ready for dinner.

Dinner in the Dungeon

Earlier in the day, as we walked from St. Peter's to the Town Hall we had noticed a gentleman in medieval dress trying to entice people into a restaurant for lunch. Back in the hotel we looked at the restaurant called and decided to give it a try.

The restaurant is called Rozengrāls - The Rose Grail and it is located in an underground building which links between two sides of the same road.

We went into one half of the building, down the stairs and saw no one, we went through the amazing tunnels until we came to a bar area, asked the barman about a table and were told to go back through the tunnel and find the man with the red hat. I began to think this process was part of the fun, as the man in the red hat got up when we arrived this time, even though he had seen us tentarivly enter via the stairs a little earlier!

Still that being sorted we were treated to a great meal, you can see how exited I am above.

Drew began with Onion soup in the old French style - the menu says: "This dish was sometimes served at receptions hosted by John Woodville (15th century)" and you could believe it. It had a lovely

I opted for the wonderfully called: Spicy soup with chicken intestines. Apparently "This recipe was found in Würzburg manuscripts" (14th century). It was tangy, herby and full of lovely juicy pieces of gizzard and liver.

 

 For mains Drew had Baked lamb shank which it is claimed: "This dish was served at the feast on the occasion of the enthronement of Elizabeth Tudor. The delight of the Queen of England was, by the way, the best appreciation for this splendid dish." He delighted in it too.

I had an amazing Pork shank, which suggested that "This dish could feed two riders. Served on a skewer with two types of spicy cabbage and home-made horseradish. It was used to bring the water to rider’s mouth." It wasn't enough for two of me, one to one was exactly the right ration to my mind. 

 

The shank was served by two types of sauerkraut, a four month and a one month version - wow they were tangy and delicious. There was also a powerful horseradish sauce which would compete with chillies any day of the week - and I'm a lover of chillies. The dripping fat from the meat, as it was cut, dropped onto the vegetable below, making them even more tasty that they had been.

Drew finished with Apple strudel with vanilla sauce - "This is the well-known recipe of the dish named “Tender Elizabeth”" (15th century). He said it was delicious 

We wondered how we were going to pay, given the theme of the restaurant and the staff's attempt to live in the era. [Co-Pilot's Note: At this point, dear readers, I became concerned about the distinct lack of verilys being performed by the pilot, he got at least 200 out of my during the course of dinner. ]

Apparently, it is done via one of the mystic magical arts!! The beeping machine is in a little room at the back, not used at the table!

Having had dinner at 7pm we walked along the river back to the hotel, getting back at 9.30pm and in bed at 10pm ready for tomorrow's journey. 

Vilnius to Riga

 

Jessica Redmerski the American Novelist said:

A bus ride is like being in another world.

We are going to test her thesis today as we travel by Bus, well Luxury Coach really, from Vilnius to Riga.

But before we get into that detail, a little about the way the morning started.  

Morning

I woke at 4.30, the room here has plenty of plug sockets (which is proving to be a key measure of success on this holiday). So, all our devices were charged (a laptop and phone for me, an iPad and phone for Drew, plus camara battery and a weekly charge of each of our electric toothbrushes means there needs to be a lot of charge points).

The room has a lovely large desk and I have plenty of photos to edit, so I continued with that task until Drew woke up at 6am and I made tea for the two of us. There are a good selection of teas in this hotel.

Breakfast

We went down for breakfast at 7am and, like yesterday, we enjoyed a wide range of pickled food, and Drew managed to squeeze in some sweet treats at the end of the meal.

Journey to the Bus Station

We leave the hotel at 9am and walk down to the Bus Stop. We catch the 53 bus, that takes a slightly longer route than the 1G we caught on arrival. We saw parts of the newer city, with lots of people heading to work on this bus. After 7 stops we arrived opposite the Bus Station (and near the railway station, very keen on integrated transport here) 

3 day ticket

When we arrived in Vilnius, I think I expected the city to be bigger than it turned out to be. Well in truth it is quite a big city, but the centre is much more compact than I expected. On arrival, as we were staying two days and they offer a 24 hour or 72 hour ticket via the Traffi app and we opted for the latter. A day ticket is €5 and a three day one €8, therefore having only caught the bus four times, we made a loss on this deal, a single is €0.90 so four is €3.60, a €4.40 loss, so any return visit I'd plan things in other ways including using the app for single tickets, which seemed to work fine. The intangible value of knowing you have a ticket on the app which you could have used throughout the stay may be hard to account for but does give a sense of confidence. So, we didn't have to panic about ways to pay as we headed to the bus station. (See picture at the top of the post)

Why the Bus?

Like the case between Warsaw and Vilnius, the Vilnius Riga route would traditionally have been done by crossing into Belarus on the way - this option is no longer available, so it was Coach or car hire. An EU funded programme called Rail Baltica is working on connecting these cities from Warsaw, through Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn to Helsinki. However, apart from the Warsaw-Vilnius section, which is well on the way, the other parts - where there are no existing lines to be upgraded - will take until the late 2030s.

 

Bus Station

The Bus Station in Vilnius is open and airy, we joined the already forming queue at stop 19 and about twenty minutes later the bus arrived. 

Our luggage was checked in at 10am, ready for departure at 10.20am and we were given sticky labels with a luggage number, so we got the right luggage at the end of the journey.

The bus driver used his mobile to scan our pdf ticket and spoke to us by personal names based on that data - a friendly touch. He told us our seat numbers, [Co-Pilot's note: I think, dear readers, I have a recollection of the words: "Okey Dokey" from the driver!!] which we already knew, and we boarded the bus and took our seats.

The bus was, to me, surprisingly comfortable. I've done some National Express journeys recently and these seats had more leg room, and faculties than those. In particular the technology was good, with films, TV shows and Maps in multiple languages. We also had a socket between us and tables large enough for my laptop - so I used the time catching up with my holiday accounts, making notes on previous days we hadn't yet blogged about. 

While the wi-fi was excellent it wasn't quite up to photo uploading, so we didn't post any of the blog content.  

The Route

The bus went out of Vilnius about four blocks to the right of where we had caught the bus this morning, we saw the River Neris for the last time as we crossed it and the coach stopped at an out of town shopping area where it picked up passengers who were staying in the North of the City. From there we were ten minutes to the main road which is good A road, rather than motorway in style, this is the A2 or E272. 

We were due to go on to the A7 (E67) but there were road signs informing the driver of major road works ahead, so instead at Panevėžys we went through the town centre and on through the Žaliosios girios biosferos poligonas - Nature preserve - through the village of Stumbriskis and on to the 191 to Vabalninkas and the 124 which at Biržai becomes the 190 and runs parallel to our original route and entered Latvia at Germaniškis (the Lithuanian name for the town) and Skaistkalne (the Latvian name) at 11:40am 

We rejoin our original route at Lielvārži with 20km to go to Riga.

Arriving in Riga

We arrive at Riga at 2:50pm and walk 450 meters from the Bus Station, again integrated with rail, to the hotel. The area is like a building site, as the Rail Baltica project is starting to take shape here and various tram lines have to be dug up and rerouted to allow for the extra space for the trains. 

The walk was simple, but challenging with all the cobbles, cases which roll away happily on many surfaces don't like cobbled streets, so we ended up carrying them, rather than rolling them.

Following Google's directions we missed the hotel twice! This was not Google's fault but Riga's. As we were to discover over the next 36 hours - Riga is full of little streets and side alleys and if you don't look down each one of them you could be walking around for hours 10 meters from the building, but impossible to get to it.

Thankfully, we retraced our steps and facing towards the station not away from it, we could easily see the hotel, three meters from the entrance to a small street - the moral of the story is to look backwards as well as forwards when navigating Riga.

Rixwell Old Riga Palace Hotel

The Rixwell Old Riga Palace Hotel has a very impressive frontage, and even more historic inside. The walls of the annex, in which we stayed, joined to the front of the building by a 3-meter walkway, entirely enclosed, is built into a very old building with walls three to four feet wide. It gave the rooms a very quaint look, though Drew was a bit concerned that the window was more like a porthole and that there would be no way out in case of emergency.

Why Rixwell Hotels? 

As with the other two places where there wasn't a convenient IHG hotel I'd looked at Booking.com for hotels in Riga and had found the Rixwell chain, their site mentioned they were a local hotel brand and booking would be cheaper directly - so I signed onto their website and booked for here, and for our next venue, Tallinn - both which have Rixwell hotels. They were 20% cheaper online on their website, than Booking.com could manage. 

Getting to know Riga

We settled in and sorted ourselves out. Drew decided that as it was still early afternoon, we could go out and orientate ourselves - especially as he is going to do the laundry tomorrow morning while I am in Mass.

We walked through the city and found it really attractive. 

Given the time taken by laundry tomorrow we spent three hours site seeing, especially on the area north of the river, that might be called new town, as the area south is clearly old town.

Freedom Monument

We came to the amazing Freedom Monument in the centre of the town between the old and new parts of the City.

Dinner

We decided that as we were out, we would go for dinner early before returning to the hotel - Drew had worn me down and managed to persuade me it was time for a pizza [Co-pilot's note: I, dear readers, have a slightly different recollection of events. I merely said that something Italian might be good tonight. The fact that, some simple-minded people (you know who) conflate Italian cuisine with pizza is not my fault.] [Pilot's note: I love Italian cuisine in all its glory, from the tomato based sauces in the South, to the rice, peas, cheese and fish through the dishes of the North and everything in between - but when Drew says: "Pizza is the only true food group" he means it and is regularly complaining that I don't give him enough. I offer his t-shirt as indication of the prompting I was getting. The photo is from when it was new, but it has been on at least two days during the holiday 😁]. 

Drew's new t-shirt (photo taken in July)

We went to Peppo's Contemporary Neapolitan Pizza.

We began with a mixed plate - Sundried tomatoes in oil, eggplants (aubergines) in oil, green olives from Sicily, Apulian Taralli, rocket salad, cherry tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil and a pinch of whole sea salt from Trapani. It was fresh, refreshing and delightful.

This was served by a lovely, freshly cooked Focaccia with lots of rosemary cooked into it. Excellent.

Drew had the Pizza Amatriciana, he says it was delightful. The heat from the pizza oven had given a lovely, charred flavour to the meat and the spiciness was running all the way through the sauce. The base was crispy where it should have been and soft at the edges - this is perfection.

I sadly have to admit, that even with my reservations about eating pizza ro often, the pizza here was fantastic. The Pizza Calabrese Bionda which I had was spicy with Nduja and other herbs. The mozzarella was gooey and delightful. The crust was light and fluffy and perfect with the flavours. 

I mentioned in yesterday's post that Drew hadn't had as much sweet food on this holiday as usual, so I persuade him, that with their lovely food this would be a good place to try some. He opted for the Dolce Pistachio which he expected to be the size of the earlier focaccia with pistachio and pistachio cream, but it was enormous - the size of a whole new pizza.

Still, you can see the contentment in his face as he bit into it.

We returned to the hotel by 9pm and after editing and uploading some photos - and realising that while we had crossed a time zone on Saturday, the camara was still on Central European Time, so I had to re-edit the details on Flickr! Otherwise the phone (right time) and camara (wrong time) pictures get out of order!! The worries of a Flickring journeyer! 

Task almost complete it was 11pm when I got ready for bed. Looking forward to exploring Riga more tomorrow.