The four
hour bus trip from Vilnius to Riga
passed relatively quickly and before long I was in Latvia. The local currency, the
Lat, is surprisingly strong – on a par with the British pound, but things cost
about half what they do in the UK
(beer for 1Lt, coffee for 1.50Lt). I arrived at the Naughty Squirrel hostel around 3pm and met another Kiwi in
my dorm – Adam, a military guy from Christchurch.
I joined him for a late lunch/early dinner at a local eatery called Lido’s which had been recommended by the receptionist at
the hostel. It was great – a buffet system in which you pick your food and then
pay based on what you’ve taken. I ended up with my new favourite cold beetroot
soup, sausage, roast veggies and cider for 4.50Lt! It was interesting to talk
to Adam about the places where he’d served and the different cultures there.
Back at the
hostel we had a couple of beers from the hostel bar and then a group of us,
including 2 Kiwis, 2 Aussies, 1 American and a crazy Scot, headed out at around
11pm to a beer garden. And it was still light! We hit a couple of clubs but it
was a quiet Sunday night so we soon gave up and headed home. Though our
Scottish friend was starting to pole dance on street signs so it was probably
just as well!
The following day I decided
to join the free tour at midday so had a bit of time to kill in the morning.
After breakfast in a little café I walked over to the “Museum of Occupation”
only to find it didn’t open until 11am, so instead ended up doing a bit of
shopping to buy some singlets to combat the increasingly hot weather. Before
long it was time to meet our guide, a young guy with a rat-tail plait hanging
from his short hair and looking a bit like “Where’s Wally” with his white and
orange striped beanie. Most of our group from the previous night where there so
I had a few friends. Once again it was a bit of an alternative tour, so instead
of checking out the Old City we headed through the Central Market situated in
old Zeppelin hangars (which had to be cut in half as they were so tall) and
into the “Russian Quarter” where we saw the Night Market, old warehouses, a
massive wooden church, and Stalin’s “Cakehouse” – a big ugly building erected
for Stalin on his birthday. We ended the tour by walking through the Vermane’s Gardens to the Freedom Monument, where in Communist times you
could win a trip to the Gulags by placing flowers at the base. The guide then
showed us some good places to eat, and the Scottish girl and I followed his
advice and bought some ice-cream from a little shop and spent a couple of hours
chilling out in the park. The others ended up heading to an old bunker where
they blew some money shooting AK47s, shotguns and handguns. Not really my
scene. We then headed out to dinner at Lido’s again, where we stuffed ourselves
before heading up to Skyline Bar 26, an amazing bar on the 26th
floor, for an “expensive” (but still cheaper than in the UK) mojhito while
overlooking the city as the sun slowly set around 11pm. On the way home we
stopped at a local square for a beer while watching young people dancing local
dances to a live band that sounded as they were playing a combination of
Scottish and Country music (certainly didn’t sound Latvian!). We had to end our
night out with a last drink at “the oldest bar in Riga”
– a tiny dark “underground” pub where the owner insisted we try the “best beer
in Riga”. I
preferred to the beer he referred to as “number 5”.
After a bit
of a late start, I caught a bus out to Sigulda, reputedly the “prettiest town
in Latvia”.
I seem to find a lot of these "prettiest towns in the country". This one certainly was beautiful. After popping into the information centre for
a map, I decided to walk some of its marked trails and chose a 6km route that
took in the local sights before heading over the river via the cable car to the
town of Turaida.
The first stop was the Sigulda New Castle, situated just in front of the Medieval Castle, which unfortunately was under
renovations and so closed to the public. I passed the Walking Stick Square filled with its
display of giant walking sticks. These are the major product of the town on account of the steep hills surrounding it. After a little detour past a
massive painted ferris wheel, I found the cable car and took it across the
heavily forested valley, where there was even a giant monkey tied to the top of
a tree. A doll that is, and I have no idea how they managed to get it up there!
After checking out the Krimulda manor house grounds I wandered down the “Serpentine Road”
and past Gutman’s Cave, the biggest erosion cave in Latvia. It wasn’t that big, but the
old engravings and etchings in the wall were interesting to see – the earliest
vandalism I could see came from 1824! I then trekked out to the Turaida Museum, the renovated old castle located
in the beautiful manor grounds, where I learnt about the legend of “Rose”, who
tricked her potential rapist into killing her by convincing him that a “magic
hanky” would block his sword from cutting off her head, choosing to die rather
than lose her “honour”. Ouch!
