We are walking up through the parks and leafy suburbs of Riga to check out the streets famous for stunning Art Nouveau architecture. There are stunning facades everywhere you look.
It is also the area where several embassies are located. We find ourselves opposite the Russian Embassy, standing amid a bouquet of Ukrainian flags, one huge one demanding “Stop Putin Stop War”. The Latvian Government has renamed the street address the Russian Embassy stands on as Ukraine Independence Street, so all mail must have this address or it isn’t delivered. Directly across the street, the building facing the Embassy hangs a massive, ugly skeletal image of Putin, which the Russian staff must look at every day. No room for doubt.
Riga is a really pretty town with expansive parks and gardens. The Daugava river bisects the city, and there’s an off shoot canal which means the old town with its churches, Cathedral, and buildings dating back several centuries, is sandwiched between the waterways. The most historic building is part of a complex known as the Three Brothers. The oldest, on the right of the picture, dates from the 15th Century; the middle in the style of Dutch Mannerist, from the 16th; and on the left, the narrow Baroque house, probably from the 17th.
The Freedom Monument is visible from all parts of the city and honours the soldiers killed in the Latvian War of Independence and symbolises, well, freedom, sovereignty and independence.
Monuments and sculptures are everywhere, honouring the past and looking to the future. We walk for kilometres through beautifully planted gardens along the canal, then board a boat trip out onto the river, passing under a total of 19 bridges over the river and canal. Across from the old town, the National Library is a striking modern building, inspired by the Castle of Light and Glass Mountain from Latvian mythology.
We’re in Riga after a four and a half hour bus trip from Tallinn, where we flew from Prague. We abandon our initial plan to take train from Tallinn to Berlin via Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. The trains are very slow, requiring several changes and, while cheap, just feel like a waste of time. The bus is almost half the time of the train, is very luxe with wifi, movies, coffee machine, and, of course, a toilet.
Tallinn, another UNESCO world heritage site, does attract a lot of tourists, but it is nowhere near as crowded as Vienna or Prague. Being on the coast does mean, however, cruise ships. The buses ferry them from the port, and long suffering guides wield numbered paddles aloft to lead the aged and infirm up hill into, yes, you guessed it, the old town. Red faced, they pant their way along we think it might be wise for some groups to have another guide at the back wielding a defibrillator.
We walk the city walls, and up a very narrow steep spiral staircase to the top of the Hellemann Tower, which gets very squeezy when there’s oncoming traffic. Imagine running up and down the stairs with your sword or bow and arrows when defending the town.
As luck, not mine, would have it, there’s a Maritime Museum in a large round tower built in the 1520s, with the charming name of Fat Margaret. We start at the bottom where the star exhibit is a wreck found on 2015. It’s a 20 metre long koge, a specific style of vessel, and it was buried in the mud for 700 years. if you squint at the roughly boat shaped pile of crusty broken lumber you can see it. Or just look at the drawings on the wall. As we wind our way up Fat Marg the exhibits take you through the age of sail, to steam, and into the modern age. Far too many models for my liking, but some good stories in the audio and video sections. At the top of the tower there are more great views. All the way to Finland.
Reflecting on our limited experience in the two Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia, they appear less economically successful and very wary of their neighbour to the east. It’s cheaper than our experience in Austrian cities and in Prague – to visit, to stay and to eat and drink – but not significantly. In fact the costs are closer to those in New Zealand. Bear in mind we are in the tourist part of town, doing tourist stuff. That is why we’re there after all.
