Riga, Grey Skies and a Quick Thaw

When I woke I could hear the sound of the old lady snow clearer scratching away at the pavement below and I thought this sounded promising so I rushed to the lobby where I knew Micky would be waiting following his early morning walk.

He assured me that there had been some snow but unfortunately it had recently turned to rain and this had washed away the two or three inches that had fallen earlier that morning.  Was he teasing? I couldn’t tell but a step outside confirmed that the old lady was simply scraping away the dirty brown slush that remained in the taxi rank.  I certainly would not have predicted this but the temperature had continued to rise and the snow that only two days ago looked a permanent feature had almost completely gone.

After breakfast Kim cleaned her boots and emptied the shoeshine machine of all of its wax and polish for at least the third time and we walked again through the art nouveau district then through the parks to the city centre.  This time we had to negotiate sprawling puddles of melted snow and the whole place was suddenly less attractive.  The Orthodox Cathedral was less impressive under a grey sky, the statue at the top of the Freedom Monument looked unhappy and the guards at the base were miserable.  The canal was no longer frozen but at least the ducks had somewhere to swim again.  Now and again some bits of blue sky skidded past but there was never enough to replace the leaden grey skies.

So we needed to find some things to do inside.  First we went to the little café at the House of the Blackheads and then we went inside to the see the museum.  This building was completely destroyed in 1945 and there were photographs inside to prove it.  In fact most of the Town Hall Square outside had been reduced to rubble but had all now been replaced.  The restoration was truly impressive and the building had been completely rebuilt in its original style.  Inside there were exhibits that had miraculously escaped the pillage that had accompanied the various occupations.

After the museum we went for lunch and because of the weather we prolonged this stay longer than we normally would.  Micky gave an informative talk on sheep shagging and Christine contributed to this with an impressive repertoire of lamb impressions.  We had some rambling and reminiscing conversations ranging from ‘what we used to do in the snow’ to the boring things we did as kids including such glorious pastimes as I Spy books and car number plate spotting.

After only a single glass of wine Calamity Christine got up off of the bench and whilst getting her leg-over got tangled up in Micky’s sleeve which resulted in a dramatic headlong crash to the floor.  As if this wasn’t funny enough she spun round, sat up with an accusing glare and shouted “MICKY!” which drew the attention of everyone around.  And he hadn’t even touched her!  Luckily she was unhurt and we were joined in our amusement by all of the other customers in the place.

It was still gloomy and we needed more indoor activity so we walked out of the centre towards the shops and on the way we passed through some streets that were yet to benefit from the city regeneration project.  Here there remained the legacy of the communist era, some original buildings bearing the scars of abandonment and neglect waiting their turn for refurbishment and other ugly functional concrete buildings added during the occupation period.  The Russians especially liked concrete and had added acres of hideous grey cement to the city, overwhelmingly dreary and the most unsightly blots on the environment and hopefully now all waiting their turn for demolition.

There was no chance of improvement in the weather so we made our way back to the Skyline bar for what had become our late afternoon refreshment break.  The lounge lizard was there again and there were more Brit-louts behaving badly in one corner but we didn’t let this spoil it for us.  Because of the weather we stayed there for the rest of the afternoon and had some tasty and reasonably priced plates of food and a final drink or two and enjoyed some last views of Riga.

Back now to that brilliant idea to book and pay for the transport to the airport in advance.  A taxi arrived at the agreed time we piled in and set off to the airport.  It was observant Kim who first noticed that this was not the same driver that we had made the arrangement with so whether he treated himself to a bottle of Balsam and stayed at home tonight or turned up at the Albert and wrote us off as generous time wasters we will never know.  Micky did his best to explain that we had paid in advance but the driver was not responsive so he had to be paid as well!

At the airport Kim played Miss Marple when she spotted some doubtful looking characters checking in with empty bags that thirty minutes later were suspiciously bulging and a quick examination of the rubbish bin into which they had discarded some litter confirmed that they were cigarette smugglers.

We arrived home five minutes ahead of schedule and then the airport and the immigrations conspired to hold us up for forty minutes to compensate for this.  I felt a complaint coming on and challenged the immigration staff for an explanation into this unacceptable treatment and an apology for the delay but naturally received neither.  Finally there was a second fiasco at immigrations when the staff tried to identify passengers from the Riga flight in a search for the smuggled cigarettes.  They should have asked Kim, she knew exactly where they were.  It was a pantomime and a complete failure with a procedure that leaked like a damaged sieve but thankfully it was only cigarettes they were looking for and nothing more sinister.

It had been a good four days and on the way home I reflected on the highlights which for me were the snow, the art nouveau area, the beach at Jurmala, the Spa, the Skyline bar and the amusing taxi Russian taxi driver.

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More posts about Riga…

Jurmala by Train

Jurmala

Riga – The Skyline Bar

Works outing to Riga

Riga- Lunch at the Lido

Rosa Klebb’s endurance sightseeing tour of Riga

Sigulda, Latvia

Latvia Dining – a Chronic Case of Indecision

Jurmala, Latvia

Riga sightseeing

Riga – Festival of the Family and a BBQ

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Riga, A Brilliant Taxi Idea

That evening as we walked back into the city for dinner it was obvious to us that the temperature was beginning to rise rather more quickly than we liked and the firm snow that had been a joy to walk on earlier was turning to a rather unpleasant watery slush.  Whilst crossing a road Kim did a doctor Foster and spectacularly stepped into a puddle, not quite up to her middle but certainly up to her ankles.  We all assumed that carried away by the beach experience earlier she really did think that she could walk on water.

We had an adequate but by no means memorable meal at the Lido and as we were discussing snow prospects we were almost immediately disappointed to see people coming inside and shaking rain from their coats.  A dash to the street confirmed the worst, the temperature had risen and it was raining.  We were not prepared for this and had to beat a hasty retreat from the city centre back to the Skyline.

Sadly the place was different tonight.  The casual and relaxed ambience that we had all enjoyed had been replaced by a rowdiness, which accompanied the arrival of the boozy Brits on stag weekends.  What a great shame.  The forty-year occupation of Riga by the Russians has now been replaced by the weekly invasion of loutish gangs from Essex and Lancashire, people who do not know how to behave when representing their country abroad and visiting a European cultural capital.  I think I know now how the Romans must have felt when the  barbarian hordes gate crashed their party.

The arrival of these undesirables clearly also brings out the local low-life.  Some of the girls were pretty but obviously hookers and the bar was populated by sinister looking local men who looked as though they had been left over from the KGB era.  One man in particular acted very strangely.  He was a solitary lounge lizard but insisted on occupying a prime location meant for four.

We temporarily joined him but he made us feel uncomfortable and we moved on when alternative seating became available.  He acted shiftily, especially when he ordered a sumptuous plate of food and then left it in full view while he played hide and seek behind a pillar.  He was obviously important because the waitress was fiercely protectionist about his seat but eventually when a group moved in on the table he reappeared to reclaim his sofa with a teasing grin.  We left early and returned to the cocktail bar at the Albert, it wasn’t such a good location but at least it was quiet and tonight there was a better atmosphere there.

On the way home we had spotted the taxi driver who had taken us to Jurmala and back and in a moment of brilliant planning we approached him and booked him to pick us up tomorrow and take us to the airport.  Just to make sure that he turned up Micky paid him in advance and we all thought that this was very clever.

Furthermore he was still confident that we would see more snow overnight and we trusted in the meteorological prediction that we all wanted to hear and went to bed.

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More posts about Riga…

Jurmala by Train

Jurmala

Riga – The Skyline Bar

Works outing to Riga

Riga- Lunch at the Lido

Rosa Klebb’s endurance sightseeing tour of Riga

Sigulda, Latvia

Latvia Dining – a Chronic Case of Indecision

Jurmala, Latvia

Riga sightseeing

Riga – Festival of the Family and a BBQ

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Riga, Frozen Beach and a Health Spa

After breakfast we took a mini-bus taxi to the seaside town of Jurmala, which was another bargain at only 15 Lats.  It was a sunny morning and we walked through some houses in various states of disrepair and renovation towards the beach.  The houses were fascinating, mostly made of timber and in contrasting styles that suggested that the owners had had fun building them in a competitive way each determined to eclipse the efforts of their neighbours.

These were once grand seaside villas accommodating only the most wealthy Russians who used to like to come here for their summer holidays and we were relieved to see that thankfully many were being restored, rather than being demolished to make way for modern structures.  The town has an official list of four hundred and fourteen historical buildings under protection, as well as three thousand five hundred wooden structures.

The last time we had seen Jurmala beach was in June sunshine when Micky claimed it for Lincolnshire by raising the County flag.  Then it was a wide expanse of inviting caramel sand and gentle seashore so we were amazed to find it now covered in ice and snow.   We had been told stories of a freezing sea but I don’t think we altogether believed them so to see this was truly awesome.  The sea had frozen at high tide and formed into extraordinary natural ice sculptures well over a metre feet deep and topped with an inch or two of undisturbed crunchy snow.

We clambered over the ice to the sea line and even Christine got brave and released her vice like grip on Micky’s arm.  The sand was frozen solid too, I imagine the sea was cold but of course no one was brave enough (or insane enough) to try it.  We walked along the frozen shore and enjoyed every minute of kicking through snow and picking our way along tracks made of ice. None of us had seen a beach frozen solid before and none of us had walked on water before either.

Back off the beach we walked through more timber houses and stopped for coffee at a friendly little café with a comforting ethnic atmosphere.  Here Mickey announced forty-eight hours without a cigarette and we all admired his achievement of going from a daily narcotic experience of fifty to zero in one go which I guess takes some doing even with the assistance of nicotine substitute tablets.

One of the main reasons for going to Jurmala was to visit the health spa at the Lielupe Beach Hotel again with its saunas, Jacuzzis and swimming pools and with the opportunity to have a relaxing massage. Kim, Christine and I opted for this option while Sue and Micky elected for more snow walking instead.

This was well worth the visit. We started off in a salt sauna where by rubbing salt over the body we proved that it was possible to remove about twelve layers of epidermis in under two seconds.  That really did sting.  The hot steam room was nice but Christine left the door open and let all of the heat out.  Next was the volcanic heat of the hundred and ten degrees sauna where molten magma bubbled away menacingly in the corner of the room and the only way to combat the sizzling heat was through the liberal application of handfuls of ice down the swimming costume.  The Jacuzzi was relaxing and the swimming pool had a variety of bubble bath zones and a sunken bar but no barman.  Kim and Christine left me and went for a massage and I did another circuit of all of the attractions before changing and rejoining Micky and Sue.

For those going for a massage the hotel had a curious layout that required a semi-naked trek through the public areas with only an undersized towel to preserve modesty and spare blushes.  Kim and Christine also had to share a lift with hotel convention guests who were as amused as they were to find themselves sharing an elevator with two scantily clad brazen English women.  No design prizes for the hotel architect then!

Afterwards we walked around the town some more and then went for a late soup lunch in a cozy little café on the main street where we had Solanka soup and cheeseboard.  The weather looked promisingly snowy and the latest edition of the Baltic Times confirmed this.  We were certain of more snow as we took the prearranged taxi back into Riga under heavy grey skies and we went once again to the Skyline bar.

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More posts about Riga…

Jurmala by Train

Jurmala

Riga – The Skyline Bar

Works outing to Riga

Riga- Lunch at the Lido

Rosa Klebb’s endurance sightseeing tour of Riga

Sigulda, Latvia

Latvia Dining – a Chronic Case of Indecision

Jurmala, Latvia

Riga sightseeing

Riga – Festival of the Family and a BBQ

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Riga, A Russian Taxi Driver’s Perspective

For evening meal we choose the out-of-town Lido amusement park where we had been before on our previous visit.  Kim was certain that it was a very precise eight-minute walk but we were all pleased that we overruled her and took the twenty-minute taxi ride instead.

The Lido looked wonderful, there was a skating rink with people enjoying themselves on the ice, someone had forgotten to switch off the Christmas lights and the whole place was like a huge fairy grotto made all the more impressive with the liberal covering of snow below our feet and a clear velvet black sky above our heads.  Inside there was a sumptuous display of self service fare all carefully arranged by meat types which to be honest only vaguely assisted selection, faced as we were by an overwhelming choice of food.

This place didn’t seem to fit the vision of Latvia as being a place to get away from and move to the east of England instead.  I know that with the lowest average wage it is officially the poorest country in the EU, and for that reason tens of thousands of Latvians have left for England where they can earn as much in a week as they earn in a month back home but this place was lively and vibrant, the food was excellent and inexpensive, and the customers seemed affluent and happy.  With women in stylish fur coats and extravagant high heel boots none of this seemed consistent with tales of migrant worker woes back home!

The journey back to the hotel was one of the highlights of the holiday! We left the Lido and looked for a taxi and it was just our luck to select one with a lunatic escaped from an asylum for a driver.  When it comes to taxi drivers we certainly can pick them.

Kim made the first approach and asked if he could take some of us back to Riga and to our surprise he indicated that he could take all five of us in his Renault Megane.

This was a vehicle that was clearly unsuitable for accommodating five passengers and probably not licensed to do so either!  Kim doubted this and just for clarification enquired a second time and clearly running short on patience he gave her his “why can’t this stupid woman understand look”, and immediately increased his carrying capacity to an absurdly optimistic eight!  Kim looked even more startled by this and even examined the interior of the car for concealed seats by sticking her head through the open window.  He responded by raising his eyeballs so far into the top of his head that if he’d had laser vision he would have fried his brains.  This was our cue to accept the five in a taxi invitation and we piled in.

Then the fun really started!  He immediately quizzed us about our national origins: “Where are you from?” He enquired, “England” said Micky, “London?”he followed up.  This is a standard opening conversation with a European taxi driver that frequent travellers will be familiar with; the only place they really know in England is the capital, and sometimes Manchester, so they always make reference to it “No, Lincolnshire” Micky informed him without managing to raise a flicker of recognition and immediately closing down this topic of conversation.

Taxi driver “Do you know Tony Blair?”, Micky “Well, not personally, no”

The scary driver went on to explain how from his personal perspective life was desperately unfair in Latvia.  From his explanation of conditions we discovered that he was a Russian living in Riga and by his own self-assessment suffering all sorts of discrimination (which is hardly surprising really when they (the Russians) had spent forty years or so kicking the shit out of the place).  His solution to the problem was the advocacy of a red revolution and I for one thought it sensible not to disagree too robustly.   He spoke with a thick Russian accent and had the unfortunate habit of preceding each statement with an unpleasant phlegmy hack that was half cough and half retch and definitely only half human.

“Times are hard, it is very expensive to live in Riga”, “No way” said Micky, half mocking him now, “This place is very reasonable!” This led to a few seconds of choking laughter and uncontrollable hacking by the driver and after a few more cost of living exchanges Micky, fully mocking him now, did eventually concede that life was getting a bit tougher in the west; “Yes,” he said “I have to agree, things are getting harder in England too, look at us, we used to have two wives each but now we can only afford one and a third to share between us!”

Then the driver lamented that it would cost him a month’s wages to stay three nights in a Riga hotel and again Micky put him straight and corrected his estimate to just the one night. This man was good fun and he even thought it was amusing when we directed him to the wrong hotel and he had to make readjustments to his route to get us to our intended destination.  And it only cost ten Lats, that’s what I call good value, a taxi ride, conversation and excellent entertainment thrown in.

Actually Russians have had a bit of a hard time since independence because when Latvia broke free in 1991, it granted automatic citizenship to those who had lived in the first independent Latvian state, between 1918 and 1940, but not to those who immigrated here after the war, when Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union.

Under Soviet rule during the Stalin years thousands were arrested and sent to Siberian labour camps, or executed. Later, hundreds of thousands of Russians, Belarussians and Ukrainians flooded into the republic under a deliberate policy of Russification. The Latvian language was squeezed out of official use.  Latvians were resentful citizens of the USSR and by 1991 they comprised only half of the population of their own country, while in Riga only a third were Latvian.

Today Latvia is determined to revive the national identity. It says that its policy towards Russians who immigrated there during the Soviet period is aimed not at punishing them for the ‘crimes’ of the Soviet regime but at ensuring that they learn Latvian and integrate fully into society. In order to naturalise, Russians must take a test in Latvian, and pass an exam about Latvian history in which they must ‘correctly’ answer that the country was occupied and colonised, not liberated, by the Soviet Union in 1945.

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More posts about Riga…

Jurmala by Train

Jurmala

Riga – The Skyline Bar

Works outing to Riga

Riga- Lunch at the Lido

Rosa Klebb’s endurance sightseeing tour of Riga

Sigulda, Latvia

Latvia Dining – a Chronic Case of Indecision

Jurmala, Latvia

Riga sightseeing

Riga – Festival of the Family and a BBQ

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Riga, A Pedestrian’s Guide

Replenished with hot food we resumed our walk through the city and made for the old Jewish Quarter called Little Russia, which took us through the market on the way.  This area of the city was interesting for consisting of buildings constructed of timber that are fighting a losing rearguard action against decay and neglect and caught in a catch twenty-two situation, too expensive to repair and restore and too culturally important to be demolished.  If something isn’t done soon it is almost certain that Mother Nature will have the final word on the matter.

Adjacent to this area was the Academy of Sciences building, constructed by the communists in the style of the Seven Sister’s Skyscrapers in Moscow and although impressive in its appearance was seriously ill conceived in respect of location.

The sky was still clear so we decided to make the Skyline bar for the sunset, which the guidebooks described as not to be missed.  We walked back through the market, this time through the old zeppelin hangers that had been converted into a huge indoor market with an impressive array of produce.  The meat looked especially good and Micky (being a butcher by trade) gave us a guide to the cuts and the comparative costs to those back home.

On the way back we passed some currency exchange kiosks and Micky panicked because he had already spent about twenty Lats today and he felt the need to convert more sterling just to restore the size of his wad and to be on the safe side just in case the inflation rate hit 1000% overnight.  He became even more concerned when the first kiosk had run out of Lats!  Christine was fortunate not to be arrested when she hung about outside looking suspiciously like a bank robber under a black hood and neckerchief auditioning for a starring role on Latvian Police Five.  The rest of us moved on and kept a discreet distance away not wishing to be involved in a potential incident with the authorities if by chance she had been caught on CCTV.

Walking around Riga is quite safe so long as you keep to the pavements and watch the traffic signals carefully because the drivers are not very pedestrian friendly if you inadvertently stray into their road space when they have priority.  Walking back to the Hotel Latvia we used the pedestrianised central reservation of the boulevard style road, which at one stage required a perilous negotiation of an intersection.

Four of us strode confidently across ignoring the nearby line of traffic waiting at traffic lights with snarling engines and drivers scenting blood with right foot poised to hit the accelerator pedal and lunge forward at the first hint of green.  We made it (but only just) but Sue had hesitated and got caught almost mid way across in a stream of traffic that heavily resented her presence on the highway.  “Hold on” she screamed but I’m not sure if it was directed at us for uncharitably leaving her behind or at the drivers moving in for the kill.  Anyway she judiciously retreated to safety, waited for the lights to change and then carefully but quickly made her way across to join us.

Riga has a curious system for pedestrian crossings, which is designed to deliberately confuse the foreign visitor.  For the person on foot standing at the pavement edge the pedestrian light turns green and it is their turn to go but the traffic ignores this and continues to hurtle uncontrollably forward almost daring the confused visitor to try his luck.  This is followed by a moment or two of nervous hesitation and jerky indecision and then a hokey cokey leg in, leg out test of willpower to see whose nerve will break first, the driver or the pedestrian.

Not a bit of this roadside performance is remotely helpful however unless the pedestrian is prepared to take a deep breath and a massive leap of faith and put a foot down firmly and confidently on the carriageway as though playing a game of ‘chicken’, because it is only at this point that the traffic is finally obliged to stop.  Reassuringly it almost always does but I wouldn’t recommend trying it in front of a Riga tram, which seem to be excused from all of the most sensible traffic regulations and weighing in fully loaded at a little under fifty tonnes or so just might take a bit of stopping.

The Skyline Bar is a great place to relax in the early evening after a day sight seeing and a good spot for watching the sunset and it is the place to be seen with modern trendy furniture and décor that suggests a level of exclusivity to this place that is in contrast to its total accessibility.    It is easy to just wander in off the streets and take the external lift to the top and you are in the best cocktail bar in the city.  One of the best views is from the men’s toilets where there is full length window and the panoramic view from it is quite stunning.

Getting one of the seats by the windows is essential but can be a chore when the place is busy and competition is fierce, and you really need one that looks to the west to enjoy the stunning view of the City and the Russian Orthodox Cathedral that stands nearby.  Sometimes you have to sharpen elbows, wait and stay alert for window seat opportunities but it is worth the effort, especially if there is a sunset to be seen and with a view like this it really doesn’t matter when the service is slow.

It is supposedly designed to resemble a Manhattan bar but as I have never been to New York I am unable to confirm whether it has achieved this objective.  The place has a relaxed atmosphere and a friendly ambience and it certainly doesn’t have Manhattan prices with generous cocktails costing on average less than a fiver.

There are many suggestions for the origin of the word cocktail, almost as many as the choice of drinks available at the Skyline Bar.  Some say that it was customary to put a feather, presumably from a cock’s tail, in the drink to serve both as decoration and to signal to teetotallers that the drink contained alcohol but my favourite is that after a cock fight it was customary to mix a drink with a different shot of alcohol for each remaining feather in the winning cock’s tail.

At the bar we found a grandstand seat by the window and settled down for the sunset that we estimated to be due at four-fifteen.  We got that wrong and had to wait until five-to-five but there was a pleasing atmosphere in the bar and we watched the last puddles of sunshine laying on the rooftops of the city until the sun quickly dipped below the horizon and it went dark.

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More posts about Riga…

Jurmala by Train

Jurmala

Riga – The Skyline Bar

Works outing to Riga

Riga- Lunch at the Lido

Rosa Klebb’s endurance sightseeing tour of Riga

Sigulda, Latvia

Latvia Dining – a Chronic Case of Indecision

Jurmala, Latvia

Riga sightseeing

Riga – Festival of the Family and a BBQ

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Riga, Winter Snow in the Old Town

In the morning the sun was shining and the roofs of the buildings opposite were still covered by a white blanket of thick snow with a cold frosty sparkle that just shouted out ‘Winter’.   Outside the hotel front door an old lady was efficiently clearing the snow from the taxi rank and the footpaths by scraping away with an oversized plastic shovel that seemed to be difficult work but most effective.

Micky was up first of course and I found him in the hotel lobby having returned from dawn patrol and still digesting the cabbage pasty that he had experimentally ordered, recklessly consumed and immediately regretted in a coffee shop around the corner.  It didn’t spoil his appetite though and we all enjoyed the hotel’s generous hot buffet breakfast.

First of all today we reacquainted ourselves with the fabulous Art Nouveau buildings that were all quite close to our hotel.  There had been a lot of restoration activity since we were last here and the pace of regeneration to repair years of neglect was very impressive.  The buildings looked different this time bathed in soft winter sunshine with snow on the roofs and when we had done enough neck craning to peer upwards towards the statues and friezes we left this part of the city and walked once again through the spacious parks towards the city centre.

The snow was still mostly undisturbed and looked sensational in the bright sunshine.  The canal, which runs around the city, was frozen solid where hooded crows were scavenging unsuccessfully and stranded ducks were optimistically looking for running water. After an aimless wander through the parks we were unsure of our position and we left navigation to Kim who was confident that she knew where we were.  

And rather surprisingly she was correct and after another park we emerged at the Freedom Monument just in time to see the eleven o’clock goose-stepping changing of the guard ceremony where the young soldiers that had stood there in the cold for the last hour looked mighty relieved to see their replacements.

Next to the monument was the Russian Orthodox Cathedral, which had also been recently restored in an ugly duckling transformation from a grimy communist grey to a resplendent sandstone yellow under black domes with gleaming crosses.  The renovated brickwork was clean and sharp with red brick stripes and elaborate white columns soaring into the immaculate blue sky above.

Russian Orthodox Church buildings differ in design from most western type churches because interiors are decorated with many sacramental objects including holy icons and murals covering most of the walls. Some of these images represent the Theotokos (Mother of God), the saints, and scenes from their varied and interesting lives.

Sue, Christine, Kim and I went inside but I think Micky feared either religious conversion or divine retribution for past sins and he stayed firmly outside.  He missed a treat.  The communists had closed the cathedral as a place of worship and had converted the building into a planetarium but the place was surely more heavenly than ever now that it had been returned to its intended purpose.  The interior was bright and cheerful, was adorned with shining icons and smelled of sweet burning incense and to one side there was a service of some kind attended by a standing congregation who were in a very solemn mood.

Last time we came here there was corpse laid out in a casket and we suspected that this might be a funeral service but I wasn’t tall enough to see over the shoulders of the congregation and I though it rude to intrude to close to the front because of a macabre interest.  The service was attended by nuns in black robes and pointy hats who looked like extras from the Lord of the Rings and was led by a priest in a lavish scarlet and gold robe.  We stayed for a while to satisfy our curiosity and then left to find Micky who was still outside but maintaining a safe distance from the Cathedral doors.

At the market square we watched people skating and strolled through a small winter market and then we got lost again and based on her earlier success (which I put down to beginners luck!) we let Kim have another attempt at finding the way to the House of the Blackheads which we had identified as a likely place for a drinks break.

We looked out into the town hall square and tried to identify the position of the web-cam to see if we could establish if it was genuine or not but we couldn’t.  There was a lot of snow clearing activity with a man in a tractor with a snow plough working quickly and efficiently to clear the square and he made a really good job of it too.  The city clearly had an efficient risk management strategy with a comprehensive snow clearance plan.

Next stop was a trip to the top of a church tower to see the city from an elevated perspective and from here we could better appreciate the patchwork quilt of coloured roofs and pastel facades looking even more attractive under the snowy mantle that decorated them.  Luckily we didn’t have to climb to the top and there was an attended lift that raised us to the summit.

We had ten minutes at the viewing platform which was about nine more than we really needed considering how cold it was with a bitter wind that felt like icy needles being driven into our faces; so we were careful therefore that we didn’t miss the descent when the lift came back to collect us and return us to the ground floor and back to the street.

Back at street level we strolled through a little restored medieval area called the Konsenta Veta that had been converted into a hotel, restaurants and small shops.  The shoppers amongst us were seduced into an amber jewelry shop but Micky and I successfully resisted the temptation to accompany them inside.  They took longer than expected so after we had organised a search party to rescue them it was time for lunch and we went to the Lido again which thankfully was serving this time; we choose our seats and then enjoyed a cheap and rustic lunch of bread and soup.

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More posts about Riga…

Jurmala by Train

Jurmala

Riga – The Skyline Bar

Works outing to Riga

Riga- Lunch at the Lido

Rosa Klebb’s endurance sightseeing tour of Riga

Sigulda, Latvia

Latvia Dining – a Chronic Case of Indecision

Jurmala, Latvia

Riga sightseeing

Riga – Festival of the Family and a BBQ

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Riga, A Baltic Winter

After the first visit to Riga I made myself a promise to go back one day but I didn’t expect it to be quite so soon.  Returning to a place for a second time is something I have vowed not to do if I can possibly avoid it mainly because there are forty-five countries in Europe and I have only so far been to thirty-0ne.  But with cheap flights helping me to shorten the list of places left to visit I decided that it would do no harm to take another look at Latvia.

I found the 1p flights to Riga in September and snapped them up immediately, Micky and Sue did the same and Christine signed up for the trip a little later on.  We had been to Riga before in a pleasantly warmJune and really liked the place so we were keen to return and see the city in the grip of a cold Baltic winter.

In the couple of weeks before the trip we kept our eye on the BBC Web Site weather pages and were disappointed to see that the conditions were changeable and that we could not reliably be guaranteed the snow and the cold temperatures that we really wanted to see.  This was unusual because Riga in January should be very cold indeed but this year the temperatures were unpredictable and that made us anxious.

There was also a useful Web-site with some web-cam pictures that as the trip got closer encouragingly showed streets covered in snow, but we weren’t absolutely convinced that these were genuine and we began to suspect that they were recordings of what the tourist office wanted people to see rather than representing reality.

We travelled to Stansted Airport by taxi, which at £30 each seemed a bit expensive to go eighty-five miles compared to the 1p airline flights to go one thousand two hundred.  To put that into perspective I calculate that if we were going to the moon it would cost £42,150 by Cockrams Coaches but only £1.99 by Ryanair.

When we landed in Riga the airport was covered in snow because there had been a big fall during the day and the snow ploughs had piled it high along the sides of the runway.  This looked very promising.  We found a taxi and had an entertaining ride into the city along untreated roads covered in snow and ice and with a driver bursting with testosterone who was determined not to make concessions to the conditions as he picked his way through the traffic in an over confident way that made us grateful to arrive at the Hotel Albert in one piece.

After we had all settled in we assembled in the lobby and set off on foot into the city.  It was cold and the snow was delightful, new and undisturbed but not too thick to make walking difficult.  The city authorities hadn’t started to tackle the clearance plan yet so everywhere we walked was through fresh virgin snow and especially through the park that took us into the city past the Russian Orthodox Cathedral and the Freedom Monument.

Because we had been here before we had a good idea of direction and we knew that we were heading for the Lido for a cheap but substantial meal.  Sadly when we arrived there the food was finished and after an unsuccessful conversation to identify an alternative establishment with the most unhelpful barman in Riga we went back to the streets to see what was available.  It was only half past nine but the restaurants all seemed to be closing down for the evening so we had to settle for TGI Fridays, which to be honest wouldn’t have been our first choice but turned out to be extremely good and unexpectedly the food had a predominantly local rather than a corporate flavour.

After dinner it was off to the skyline bar at the Hotel Latvia, twenty-seven storeys high and the tallest building in the country with a cocktail bar on the twenty-sixth floor giving panoramic views of the city.   On the way back Christine slipped and tried to plunge head-first through a plate glass window, knowing how accident prone she is we were relieved therefore that after that she clamped herself onto Micky’s arm for safety.  At the Hotel we found a window seat and we spent an enjoyable two hours experimenting with new cocktails.

The prices were nicely inexpensive and the vodka must have been cheap too because on an adjacent table there were two extremely drunk local men sharing the last remains of a bottle under the watchful eye of an attentive hotel security man who looked as though he had stepped from the pages of a Len Deighton novel.

Later we walked back to our hotel through the snow.  This was snow as I remembered it when I was a boy, not the stuff we get now that disappears almost as soon as it hits the ground.  This was the sort of snow that you can go confidently to bed safe in the knowledge that it would still be there in the morning.  So we did.

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More posts about Riga…

Jurmala by Train

Jurmala

Riga – The Skyline Bar

Works outing to Riga

Riga- Lunch at the Lido

Rosa Klebb’s endurance sightseeing tour of Riga

Sigulda, Latvia

Latvia Dining – a Chronic Case of Indecision

Jurmala, Latvia

Riga sightseeing

Riga – Festival of the Family and a BBQ

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Tallinn, Snogging and Ice Skating

There was no improvement in the weather and certainly no sign of snow and if anything it seemed to be getting even warmer.  After leaving the bus we walked back through the city gates and at the market met up again with Mike and Helene who had just had a nasty little expensive incident in the same café that we had visited yesterday morning.  Well, that was their own fault, they should have come with us to Stalag Pirita Spa Hotel where prices were much more reasonable.

For lunch we weren’t especially imaginative and we returned to the same place as yesterday passing by and rejecting numerous suitable alternatives along the way.  But the food was good and Sue and Christine were becoming adventurous as they both ordered a bowl of spicy solyanka soup prepared to a traditional Russian recipe.  It was a pleasant place, warm and friendly and we took our time over lunch and drinks before returning to the streets where once again even by only mid afternoon it was beginning to get dark.

Outside in St Catherine’s Passage a couple of local men who had had a bit too much gluvine came past us in high spirits and one of them took a liking to Margaret and went in for a full snog attack.  He was determined to get his Christmas kiss and Margaret had to stoutly fend him off.  I think it was a full tongue assault and it was a good job for him that he didn’t achieve it because that would have left him in desperate need of urgent medical attention.

St Catherine’s Passage took us back to the ‘wall of woolens’ so Kim and I stopped here to purchase some souvenirs.  We selected a red cardigan with kittens on it for my granddaughter but long before we finished the others became bored with children’s clothes shopping and wandered off ahead and we became separated so we walked back to the market and then into the crooked side streets that run behind the main square with their cobbled streets, decorated shop windows and buildings with attractive pastel façades that were doing their best to cheer up an overcast steely grey day.

We were becoming more familiar with the layout of the town by now and we groped our way through the tangle of narrow streets past the city walls with conical topped towers, through medieval stone arches and narrow streets squeezed in between the adjacent houses until we stepped through one of the old city gates and found ourselves back at the Aleksander Nevski Cathedral whose floodlit walls were thrusting upwards into the late afternoon dark sky.  We visited the interior, which was full of colourful paintings and golden icons and smelt heavily of burning incense and candles.

After a drink in the bar we prepared to go out again and we were excited about this because some of us were going ice skating.  Christine can’t go on the ice of course because she is too accident prone even under perfect walking conditions and neither Sue of Mike S felt confident about taking to the ice but the rest of us were all keen to give it a try so we paid our entrance fee and strapped on the excruciatingly painful bright orange boots and carefully took to the ice.

The strange thing about ice skating is that it is a lot more difficult than it looks and instead of gliding elegantly around the outdoor arena we were stumbling gracelessly across the frozen surface just being thankful to remain vertical.  Kim quickly abandoned any attempt at proper skating and went around clutching on to a sort of ice rink zimmer frame, Mike W quickly got cold feet and abandoned the ice almost as soon as he had started but after a shaky start Helene was lapping faster and faster and Margaret was a complete natural with lashings of grace and poise.

I managed to stay upright through a dozen or so circuits but although I was beginning to feel like Christopher Dean and was humming Bolero to myself as inspiration I am fairly sure it wasn’t pretty to look at for those spectating.  For a start I found it impossible to skate with both feet so quickly established an awkward style of keeping my left foot in constant contact with the ice and pushing myself along with nervous little stabs of the right foot and then sliding for as long as possible before starting over again.  I found that stopping was especially difficult and the only really confident way of coming to a standstill was to plot a course for the side of the rink and then crash into the wooden fences surrounding the ice and it is difficult to make that look in any way stylish!

The entrance fee and boot hire was for a full hour but after twenty minutes without anyone injuring themselves we decided that this was probably quite long enough and to stay longer might increase the risk of broken bones and lacerations so we returned the boots and left in search of a restaurant.

There was plenty of choice but most of the menus were similar in content and price so, just as at lunchtime, we repeated what we had done the previous evening and went to the Peppersack again and had a very similar meal to the previous evening.

We were all quite tired tonight so after we had finished we left and walked back to the hotel via the starkly paved 1930s Freedom Square and its totally unimpressive Freedom Clock and then past the city’s western parks and the massive artillery tower, the Kiek in de Kök, built in 1475 and nearly forty metres high with walls four metres thick.   There was no late drinking this evening so we all went to our rooms for an early night.

What the snog attacker nearly got…

Tallinn, Pirita

The weather in the morning was exactly the same as the day before and the snow we had hoped for, and the taxi driver had promised, had failed to make an appearance.  A thick blanket of cloud was draped over the city and the darkness made it seem earlier than it really was.

The sightseeing contingent of the party was reduced from eight to six as Mike W and Helene made the strange alternative choice of a shopping morning and the rest of us set out with the intention of finding the bus station and taking a trip along the coast to the marina and beach at nearby Pirita.

We skirted the old town and headed for the ring road and found a busy bus terminal where we bought tickets from a helpful lady in a nearby kiosk who explained with little English and a great deal of difficulty that we needed to catch the number 5 from a bus stop a little way away and through an adjacent park.

Unless the local Estonian people could speak English (and thankfully many of them could) communication was quite difficult because unlike most European languages, which evolved from ‘Indo-European‘, Estonian belongs instead to the impenetrable Finno-Ugric branch of languages, making it most similar to two of the World’s most difficult languages to learn, Finnish and Hungarian with an uncommonly large number of vowels which make it a bit of a mouthful for beginners.

We found the bus stop and didn’t have long to wait for the bright green flexi-bus to arrive and once on board we were away and heading out of the city past the busy ferry terminal and then onto a road that followed the shoreline north.  There was a scrubby beach and a bleak uninviting grey sea that stretched out beyond a couple of islands and then on to Finland.  We had considered taking a trip to Helsinki and if the weather had been better, perhaps with some blue sky and sunshine, then we might have made the two hour crossing but the Gulf of Finland didn’t look especially inviting today.

After fifteen minutes we arrived on the outskirts of Pirita and the bus turned inland.  This is where we should have got off but Mike, who was in charge of the map, was confident that this would only be a short detour and the bus would promptly rejoin the main road and take us into the middle of town.  At the first junction he predicted a left hand turn but the bus went right but there was another junction ahead and he was certain this would turn left but again it went right and we were heading further inland and by now it was too late to get off.  Not sure of where we were going we asked a fellow passenger who confirmed that the bus would eventually arrive in Pirita but he seemed genuinely bemused why we hadn’t got off earlier.

The bus passed through deciduous beech woods completely stripped bare of leaves – now a golden carpet, open parkland and communities of little wooden houses all shut up in preparation for four long months of winter.  It was a pretty little route that turned out to be one of the more up market suburbs of the city and finally we came to a small commercial centre where the bus turned around and took us all the way back in the opposite direction.  And I mean all the way back because at the turn off where we should have left the bus in the first place it turned around to set off back to Tallinn and we had to leave it in exactly the place that we should have thirty minutes earlier.  We had no complaints however because this had been a good value trip at only 9 Eeks (about .60p).

As the bus disappeared down the road we wondered if we had made the right decision because the place was austere and charmless with a desolate sea front with only a concrete promenade of obviously inadequate construction that had completely collapsed into the water and was no longer suitable for its intended purpose.  Everyone declared it to be coffee time but all that we could find was a forlorn looking monster of a hotel called the Pirita Top Spa that turned out to be a dreary leftover from the days of Soviet occupation.

It had been constructed in the late 1970s and now, as though a symbol of all that communism stood for in Eastern Europe, it is in the advanced stages of decay with crumbling concrete, peeling paintwork and a harsh unattractive appearance and just like communism one day soon it will be gone completely.    It must have been lovely having the Soviets as imperial occupiers because one of the most burdensome legacies of the post war era is the environmental damage they inflicted on their unwilling hosts and this place certainly contributed to that.  As well as monstrosities such as this they left behind widespread pollution and across military installations on Estonian territory the army dumped hundreds of thousands of tons of jet fuel into the ground, improperly disposed of toxic chemicals, and discarded outdated explosives and weapons in coastal and inland waters.

The Estonian people resented the occupation and after regaining independence in 1991 the restored Republic only recognised citizenship of those who were a citizen prior to the Soviet occupation. This affected people who had arrived in the country after 1940, the majority of whom were ethnic Russians who were now required to have knowledge of Estonian language and history before being granted citizenship.  The United Nations considers this to be a breach of human rights and who am I to say whether it is right or wrong?

Inside the hotel there had been some effort and a bit of an improvement but I don’t think I will be booking my summer holidays there.  After returning home I checked the hotel web sites for customer reviews and this simply confirmed this decision for me.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g274958-d277102-Reviews-Pirita_Top_Spa_Hotel-Tallinn.html

From the outside we could see that the hotel was built in the style of a beached ocean liner and the reason for this was that it was constructed as a training camp for the 1980 USSR Olympic team so presumably then, not designed for comfort and pleasure.  It has undergone a couple of refurbishments but it must be hard to do anything with a building erected in this period, and one thing for certain is that it will never look good.  The 1980 Summer Olympics were held in Moscow and the yachting events were held here in Tallinn, which was the first time that the Games were held in Eastern Europe and that an event took place in an occupied country.

Twenty-one years later Estonia was firmly part of the west and was the first ex Soviet occupied country to win the Eurovision Song Contest followed in the following year by neighbours Latvia.

It certainly was a curious structure, a monument to the past with no place in the future.  We wandered around the boats and the inadequadetly stocked sports shops and then when we certain that we hadn’t missed anything returned to the bus stop and caught the 1A back into Tallinn, this time going directly there without Mike’s unnecessary detour.

Riga, Festival of the Family and a BBQ

After lunch we wandered out of the square in no particular direction and for no particular reason and at one point I had a very lucky escape when a seagull overhead singled me out for target practice.  I know that a bit of bird excrement on your shoulder is supposed to bring good luck but there is a world of difference between a little bit of sparrow dropping and a full load of seagull deposit.

I wasn’t being particularly observant at the time but Kim saw the bird hovering overhead and mischievously seeking out a victim and she screamed out a warning.  It had me firmly in its sights, it locked on and swooped at top speed towards me.  When it was within range it opened its bomb doors and discharged its gooey load.  This was a well thought out attack and I had to take swift evasive action to avoid a very messy experience.  I dodged aside in just the nick of time because the smelly slop hit the pavement with an enormous splatter and spread on impact into a repulsive sticky mess.  A direct hit would have resulted in a serious dry cleaning bill I can tell you!  The seagull shrieked with disgust at missing its target, swooped skyward and flew off at great haste its mission thankfully unaccomplished.

As we walked we heard cheerful music approaching and as we turned into a long narrow street we could see a procession of people walking towards us that was a sea of colour with young people waving sunflowers, balloons and small Latvian flags.  They were handing out sweets to onlookers like us and I put some into my pocket for later.  I think that it must have been the most joyful procession that I have ever seen with singing and dancing and every participant looking thrilled and happy to be involved.

The procession was part of the celebration of the family festival and after it had passed we walked lazily around the city proudly displaying the little Latvian flags that we had acquired and quite by chance (well, not really by chance) we found ourselves back at the Lido and we stopped for a final drink and sat outside on the pavement in the sunshine.

This had been a most relaxing and pleasant day freed as we were from the frenzy of organised itineraries but we were due to return to that now as we were to reassemble as a group to go out of town for a final meal together.  We met at the Freedom Monument and walked to a tram stop near the Hotel Latvia stopping on the way to collect Christina as she finished work, which immediately kick started the flow of testosterone in David and Mark as they competed hard with each other again to be her escort for the evening.

Alona had done a splendid job in organising our stay in Riga but as we waited for the tram to our next destination there was genuine concern about timings because we were going out of the city and we had to be back in good time to catch our flight home.  There was quite a long wait for the tram and when it eventually arrived we all agreed to chance it and we got on to join a crowd of locals all going home from work.

Our dining destination was an out of town barbeque restaurant that consisted of a central wooden building surrounded by what appeared to be garden sheds.  This looked very curious.  One of the sheds was ours and a member of staff directed us to it, inside there was a table laid out for us with tasty canapés and Rigan champagne cooling in ice buckets.  This was very clever, an all year round barbeque experience that was equipped to operate whatever the weather.

After the starter there was a feast of grilled sashlika, a Latvian style kebab, which consisted of beef, pork, lamb and chicken accompanied by potatoes and salad and a curiously large amount of dill. In the middle ages, dill was used as an ingredient in love potions so I was a bit concerned about David and Mark in their state of arousal consuming far too much than was really good for them.

The food was excellent and the price absurdly inexpensive, when the bill arrived it was less than a hundred Lats for all twelve of us, David acted as banker and collected enough to include a respectable tip but there was a moment of panic when the waiter requested it back to add the cost of the champagne.  We feared the worst but David quickly recalculated and declared that even with this adjustment we still had enough for the decent tip.  That’s what I call value for money.

This had been an excellent trip and I had enjoyed every minute of it and in the taxi back to the hotel and then another to the airport I was able to reflect on this second visit to the wonderful Riga.  The highlights were Sigulda (despite the rain), the beach at Jurmala and the ethnic museum, the quality of the food and the prices.  Looking back I even enjoyed the itinerary chaos and the moments of excruciating indecision.  Riga has quickly become a favourite of mine and I made a secret promise to return again soon.