Hard to believe, but we just passed the halfway point of our trip. That said, we aren’t slowing down!!
We started the morning off with a brisk walking tour of Riga Old Town, led by local ‘Rita from Riga’. Brisk because it was 38 degrees out, sans windchill. Thanks to the buildings and the architecture, Riga Old Town has a Unesco designation, and is absolutely amazing!
An amalgamation of many architectural styles, some by choice & design and others because something was built after a space was vacated during the war. Reading between the lines, many buildings were destroyed and new buildings were erected. There are spots where one building dates back to the 14th century and the one next to it is 19th century.
Here are some of the streets around our hotel.
This was the street between our hotels various buildings. We were 2nd story on the left (colored) building, Blake and Sondra were 2nd story on right (Building 3), and Marla was 3rd Story. So as you can see, easy to communicate between windows.
This was an old warehouse building. You can still see where the hoist would have been to lift materials to the different floors of storage. This (and a couple of adjacent other warehouses is what gave the area, and our hotel it’s name, as they were the Blue Pigeon, the White Pigeon, and one other colored Pigeon (that we’ve forgotten). You can now see where the logo from yesterday’s picture of our hotel came from, the White Pigeon.
This is a good example of the difference between modern day elevations (the roads have been built up) and original elevations. Some of the old original buildings still have their openings at original elevations, so when you see stairs down like this, they are going to the original street grades / original building entrances.
You can see these church facades peeking over roof tops.
With another look.
A quick interesting story on this church (before just bombarding you with Old Town pics), was that there was a military order (called the Ax Brothers we believe) with a castle in old fortified Riga. Well, they were full of themselves, and rather than wanting to transport their good to their castle via wagon, they instead opted to sail their ships up the river directly to the castle so as not to have to handle their goods but once.
As indicated, they were arrogant, so they just destroyed all of the private citizen’s bridges across the river that was in their way. This upset the local Rigans so much, they put cannon in the upper areas of the church above, and leveled the castle. The moral to the story was: Don’t piss off a Rigan.
(They re-built their castle elsewhere, yet ironically, local Rigans leveled that one later as well for similar reasons.)
Below is a sculpture next to St. Peter’s Church, gifted to Riga from their sister city Bremen, Germany. It is a play on the Musicians of Bremen, a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. This represents the Musicians of Riga, peeking through the Iron Curtain. As it’s a fairly involved tale, you can google it if you are truly interested.
St. Peters and surrounding areas.
And here’s a flood of Old Town pictures.
Yes, that is a cannon planted in the ground as a protective bollard (on the right).
And one of Tim’s favorite old style sign (kind of like a blade sign, but one that’s graphically demonstrates what the business being advertised is).
Shortly after the tour ended, we drove about an hour to Gauja National Park. Our first stop at Gutman’s Cave was mostly a photo opp but also laid the groundwork for a love story we would later hear. After walking through a beautiful park, we found the cave which is of sandstone, has a small stream flowing out of it, and it is said that the water has healing powers.
After that short stop, we headed to Turaida Castle. This is more than a castle, it’s an expanse with several buildings that serve as museums/displays, a layout of sculptures, and part of the original castle. This is where the love story from Gutman’s Cave was revealed – boy and girl meet under the cover of night.
We entered the courtyard of the castle remains, where there are several rooms, cellars, and dungeons with displays. The tower is still intact, well…partially intact as some was rebuilt, and is open. Blake, Sondra, Jay, and Tomas decided to take the 137 steps to the top while Tim & Marla checked out the grounds and the displays.
The walk to the top of the tower was very manageable as it was mostly actual stairs, not spiral staircases. The view from the top was AMAZING! The fall colors, the river, the courtyard…. just beautiful!
Our final destination was Sigulda Castle, which is mere minutes from Turaida Castle. This is a combination of a newer, and really more of a residential castle or residential manor home as compared to what one thinks of a traditional castle along with an older castle.
There was a really cute “kitchen brigade” between the parking lot and the gate to the grounds.
The old castle is in ruins but is open to visitors, and the new “castle” looks more like a hotel than it does a palace/castle. We opted to not tour either, but enjoyed walking around the grounds before heading back to Riga.
After dinner at a local cafeteria, we stopped at the Black Magic Bar. Our morning guide suggested that we had to try Latvia’s drink, which is known as Black Magic or Riga Black Balsam. This drink was originally made for medicinal purposes, even sold as such, and reportedly is still used as a ‘treatment’ in current times.
Because we’re all good sports, we ordered a flight and did our normal passing of the shots. The flight was comprised of the original – Black Balsam, black currant, cherry, tropical, and mint chocolate.
We knew there was a cellar in the bar where tastings are done, and we were intrigued by it. Jay, Blake, and Sondra asked if they could take a peek at the basement. The bartender contemplated it and said he would quickly escort them downstairs. No pictures were taken, but it was a really cool cellar!
That’s it for today. Cheers.
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