Our hotel had a great breakfast, on the top floor of the hotel. It has a glass rooftop that let in lots of light and that helped wake us up. Our hotel is mentioned in a few blogs as a great place for brunch, and they all said to try the pancakes, so like a bunch of lemmings, that’s what we did. (Actually, we did listen to the other options and then decided on the pancakes, so maybe not so lemming-like). The pancakes were great, a nice break from standard hotel breakfasts.
It was overcast today, which I actually preferred cause it’s better for lighting. Riga’s old town is very photogenic, even more so than Tallinn. Every time you turn your head it’s another pic to take.
We just walked around randomly rather than trying to hit the main things to see. Tallinn’s old town is smallish, about 15 minute walk from one end to the other, so in a day it’s possible to just walk randomly and see about everything.
We did start by heading to the Three Brothers, which is a row of three houses, each from a different century and representing different eras in architecture. Supposedly it’s unphotographable because it’s on a narrow street and difficult to get perspective. In the morning the sun is in the wrong spot too, so it’ll be an evening pic.
Next walked out of the old town towards the Freedom Monument, a 42m tall obelisk dedicated to Latvians who lost their lives fighting for independence after WWI.
Similar to Ashgabat, the old town is surrounded by neighbourhoods that are worthwhile visiting on their own accord. So it wasn’t a big drop off walking out of the old town, although there’s definitely far less tourists.
We then walked through the surrounding park, Bastejkalns. We recognized a lot of the plants and flowers, they’re very similar to what we have back home. I guess we’re in the same Hardiness Zone. There’s been lots of rain recently and the park looked great.
Nearby is Riga Nativity of Christ Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox church, so we stopped in to visit. It’s beautiful inside but no pics allowed. By my count it’s the fifth different Orthodox Church jurisdiction we’ve been to on these couple trips. (I had to look up the jurisdictions in Wikipedia).
Next went to Riga Central Market. It’s housed in four huge former zeppelin hangars. The structures are beautiful, perfect for a market.
We had lunch at the market, and then a couple local craft beers from Alkīmikis, which has its brewery very close to where we were walking earlier. Their IPA was excellent. Tried some baked goods from BakeBerry which came highly recommended from our guide from yesterday’s excursion.
Walked back to the old town and to St. Peter's Church. It’s possible to take an elevator to the viewing deck in the tower, and it didn’t look too busy, so up we went! There’s a limit of ten people in the elevator, I can see there being long line ups in busy season. We only had to wait for the 2nd group.
The view from the top is amazing, I took a million pics. I actually posted five of the pics, which is unusually high for me for a single location. It was cold with the wind (the high was about 13C today) so we went back down after about ten minutes.
We had dinner at Riits, just outside the old town. I had the shrimp and garlic appetizer, followed by grilled rack of lamb. Heather has a goat cheese salad and then the grilled pike perch (aka zander). Everything was really good. Once again we ate at a place where they were turning away walk-ins. (We’re trying to stay a week ahead for restaurant reservations). They had my favourite craft brewery from Riga (Alkīmikis) so tried their Pale Ale.
The lighting was amazing at 10pm when we left the restaurant to walk back into the old town. It’s great that the cameras on phones are so good now, because I don’t have to carry my camera around. About 25% of the pics I post are taken with my iPhone! Got my pic of the Three Brothers, not only was the lighting much better than this morning, there were also no other tourists.
It was still early for bed so we called into a patio bar for a drink, and then later headed home.
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