In September I had a few days off from caring for mum in Derbyshire and I flew to Riga, Latvia for the weekend. It was a ridiculously cheap outward flight on Friday morning for around $35 with a more expensive $100 return on the Monday. That is a great deal for what is over a 2 hour flight each way despite it being on the bare bones carrier RyanAir - no luxuries there.
Landing in Riga, it was a simple and easy bus trip into the center of town. It dropped me off at the main bus/train station and since it was only lunchtime and too early to check into the hotel I set off to explore.
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| The National Academy of Science, Riga |
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| The Academy of Sciences Building, Riga |
Nearby the bus station was the Latvian Academy of Sciences Building. It is a fine Stalinist piece of architecture affectionately referred to as Stalin’s Birthday Cake by the locals. It was built after WWII and seems a bit disheveled now. I believe the Latvians don’t appreciate the Soviet period so it is not being cared for. I took the lift up to the 17th floor viewing platform where there was a nice view over the city below - the old town with its cathedral and many churches, the Daugava River and its bridges and the TV tower which is the largest tower in the EU. It is a picturesque city.
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| Riga View from Academy of Sciences Building |
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| Riga View from Academy of Sciences Building |
Not far from the Academy of Sciences Building is the Public Market. Quite a large market accommodated in five old German Zeppelin hangars. These were brought over from Germany after WWI and reassembled here to provide a home for the previously open air market. It’s always interesting to browse the markets and there was some interesting fare - flowers, fruits and vegetables, meats and a lot of fish - weird fish, smoked fish, smelly fish. There were several stalls just selling what looked like red currants. They looked delicious.
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| Red Currants, Riga Market |
I then crossed over into the old part of town and checked into my hotel, the very fine Neiburgs Hotel located in a renovated old Art Deco building with some beautiful decorations on its exterior.
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| The Neibergs Hotel, Riga |
After check in I set off again to explore the old part of town. First stop was the Cathedral, a magnificent large church, once Catholic, but now Evangelical (how does that work?). It has a most wonderful organ that according to the guide book has some 6,768 pipes. That number of discrete pipes is hard to comprehend. It also a majestic tower and for a fee you can ride the lift to the viewing platform where there is another great view of the city below.
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| Riga Cathedral |
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| Pipe Organ, Riga Cathedral |
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| The Three Brothers |
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| The Freedom Monument, Riga |
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| One of many Art Deco Buildings, Albert Iela, Riga |
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| Ornamentation, Albert Iela, Riga |
There are several nice parks in Riga and a particularly nice one runs adjacent to the canal that flows through the town. I had a pleasant walk through the park area over to the Art Deco area of town. I wasn’t aware of this but Riga is the city with the largest number of Art Deco buildings in Europe. Most of these were built in the early 1900’s and there are some spectacular examples. Many are located on Albert Iela (iela means street) and just off this street is the Stockholm School of Economics which is a true work of art. Apparently the architect responsible for many of these gems is a Mikhail Eisenstein, who was the father of film director Sergei Eisenstein.
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| The Stockholm School of Economics, Riga |
I continued walking north to St Gertrude’s Church and then south past the spectacular Nativity of Christ Orthodox Cathedral, back into the old town. I stopped for a beer at a cafe in the main Cathedral Square. There was some surprisingly good music being performed by a young woman singer accompanied by a guitarist - a nice finish to the afternoon.
After the refreshment I went to a concert in the cathedral. It was an organ and violin concert and while the organ is not my favorite instrument when the organist let loose on those 6000 odd pipes it was quite something. The music was all Latvian and I didn’t recognize any of it.
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| The Blackhead's House, Riga |
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| The Blackhead's House, Riga |
Next morning I got up early to take a walk around while the streets were still empty. Past the Blackhead’s House, which is perhaps the most spectacular old building in Riga, and out to the bridge over the Daugava River. The view from the center of the bridge is very nice in the early morning light - the new and impressive National Library glistening in the sunlight, the river stretching out towards the TV Tower, the many towers and spires of the churches in old town.
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| The Latvian National Library and Daugava River |
Back along the river bank to the statue of Big Chris, someone associated with the mythology of how Riga came to be located in that spot (he carried a small infant across the river at nighttime and for this act of kindness he was rewarded with gold enough to start building the city or something like that).
After breakfast I did more old town wandering and then made a visit to the Photography Museum. A collection of old photos of Riga and of old camera equipment. One exhibit focused on Valters Kapps or Walter Zapp as we know him in the west who invented the Minox Cameras, a range of miniature cameras much loved by 60’s spies. He was born in Riga and he made his cameras in Latvia. I owned a Minox 35mm miniature camera in the 70’s, it took great photos and it was really, really small. It was not a very big museum, nor was it very popular, they went around ahead of me turning on the lights and then turning them off after I left each room.
Next stop was the Mentzendorff’s House, a museum showing how life was lived by a prosperous trader in the early 1700’s. Again I was the only person in this very small museum, and again they turned on the lights for me as I moved through.
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| George Armitstead Statue, Riga |
To the park by the canal again and the very fine Opera House. In the park near the Opera House there is a statue to an interesting character - George Armitstead. He was a Yorkshireman and he ended up being the Mayor of Riga during its belle epoch (early 1900’s). He is commemorated with a statue of he and his wife along with their dog and in recognition of his significance to Yorkshire and Latvia none other than Queen Elizabeth came to Riga’s to unveil the statue.
One final museum for the day as I visit the Riga Historical and Navigation Museum. The Riga History is the main bit with lots of artifacts from various phases of Riga’s history and the Navigation bit is just a couple of rooms with a lot of models of ships.
At around 4:00 I head over to the bus station to catch my bus to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. It was an international bus, traveling from Tallinn, Estonia through Latvia, Lithuania and on to Warsaw in Poland. For the vast sum of 17 euros I was transported in comfort on the 4 hour journey to Vilnius. The landscape along the way was not very dramatic - very flat, agricultural. I didn’t even notice when we passed from Latvia into Lithuania - both Schengen countries.
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| Tallinn to Warsaw Bus |
Arriving in Vilnius I had a 20 minute walk in light rain, to my hotel in the center of the old town. I don’t know what I would do without Google Maps on an iPhone - I had an offline map guiding me through the streets to the hotel front door.
Vilnius on a slightly wet Saturday night was quite busy. There is a main pedestrian street through the old town called Pilies Gatve and it is full of restaurants and bars and they were doing good business. As the rain eased later in the evening I took a walk around the old town.
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| Vilnius |
The next morning I took another early morning walk around town - the University, many many churches, a 17th century fortress on the old city wall known as the Bastion, and then over to the Uzupis neighborhood. Uzupis is a bohemian neighborhood that declared itself a tongue-in-cheek republic. It has its own constitution displayed in many languages on plaques along one of the streets. It apparently celebrates its independence on April 1 every year. It’s nice enough but nothing outstanding. At the far eastern end of the neighborhood there is the Bernadine Cemetery - a lovely picturesque cemetery with beautiful old gravestones.
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| Vilnius view from Gedimas Hill |
After breakfast in the hotel, it was off for a more serious exploration of Vilnius. The Cathedral, the Palace of the Grand Dukes, a climb to the fortress on top of Gediminas Hill, a walk down the other Main Street, Gedimina Prospekt. On this last street there was a street market - lots of stalls selling meats, cheeses, honey, jewelry, beer, just about everything. At the top end of the street is the Museum of Genocide Victims housed in the old KGB Building. An interesting museum detailing the horrors that were subjugated on the Lithuanians first by the Nazis and then by the Soviets. The KGB cells in the basement were quite chilling. I remember one young girl walking through and crying - these horrors of the Soviet era are not long gone.
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| The KGB Cells, Vilnius |
I then visited the Jewish Holocaust Museum. A small museum housed in an old wooden cottage. I was the only visitor. Small and unpretentious but no less moving.
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| Frank Zappa Memorial |
Not far from the Holocaust Museum, in the parking lot of an apartment building is a bust of Frank Zappa sitting on top of a pole. Frank wasn’t of Lithuanian descent and he never visited Lithuania but someone here admired him and thought he should have a memorial and why not, he was a great musician.
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| Romanov Church - Vilnius |
A lot more walking around to look at a couple of Romanov style onion domed Orthodox churches and then another cemetery, the Antakalnis Cemetery. Vilnius is not a large city but I certainly did a lot of walking. My iPhone Health app told me I did 18 miles during the day. Since most of the streets are cobbled the going was quite hard and my feet really ached by the end of the day.
Vilnius is a nice city and it looks quite prosperous. They have done well since splitting from the Soviet empire, and it looks like the EU has done them good too. However, Vilnius does not have the charm of Riga. There are some nice buildings there but nothing quite to compare with the attractiveness of Riga.
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| The Very Modern Airport Train in Vilnius |
At the end of my day in Vilnius, I walked over to the Railway Station and caught the train out to the airport. In the hall of the station there was an upright piano for anyone to play and this young lady was doing a fine job filling the hall with some beautiful piano music. The modern train to the airport was 0.65 euros for the 15 minute trip - there’s a lesson there for Heathrow Express in London. It was a nice smooth 30 minute flight on Air Baltic back to Riga.
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| Piano for anyone in Vilnius Station |
I was back in the same hotel for the night in Riga, the Neubergs, and then I had a couple of hours in Riga before going out to the airport for my flight to East Midlands on Monday morning. I had pretty much covered the city on Friday and Saturday so I just walked around a few of my favorite spots - the Cathedral, the Blackheads House, etc.
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| A Soviet Hind Helicopter |
I got to the airport a little early and I had noticed a lot of old aircraft adjacent to the terminal. I walked over to find it was a sort of museum. There were a lot of Soviet era aircraft, helicopters, and missiles all arranged in a junkyard format. Some wonderful old stuff but it was sadly all decaying out in the open air and rain. The most impressive thing was this huge Hind transport helicopter - what a beast!
Arriving back in East Midlands airport I was in the longest immigration queue you could ever imagine. East Midlands is no longer the small airport it once was, there is a lot of traffic going through there.
There are more photographs here.
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