Now don't get worried over there, I have not found someone over here that I have fallen in love with, but a new favorite city. I have spent the past 4 days in Riga, Latvia and this city is just amazing. It is dubbed the "Paris if the North" and I can see why. The entire Old Town is a Unesco World Heritage site and is just oozing with charm and appeal. Everything is pedestrian friendly as cars are not allowed in Old Town and it is all cobbled streets with old buildings, several of which have been redone with the Art Noveau style. There was music playing all the time with cafes spilling onto the streets and town centers. It is very clean and well groomed all around. People are constantly out walking around at all hours of the day and even night. Families will be out strolling until very late as the days are long and lazy. It was truly an amazing city.
I spent the first day just walking around, taking in all the sites and sounds, soaking up all the amazing architecture. There are several grassy parks around town on the outskirts of Old Town, one of which is beautifully landscaped with bushes, flowers, statues, low lying waterfalls. I spent a good chunk of time in this park several times just relaxing, basking in the feel of the city. I also was able to see a Museum regarding the Occupation of Latvia by first the Germans and then the USSR until their independence in the early 1990's. This was fascinating as it chronicals everything that occured and discussed the Holocaust as well.
The next day, I took the bus outside the city for about 30 minutes to see the Latvian Ethnographic Museum. This is an entire area sitting on the edge of a lake that has tons of old buildings from the last several hundred years taken from all over Latvia to this museum. It was fabulous as well. This type of stuff I love. The next day I did a small tour of Rundale Palace about an hour or so outside of the capital. There is no way to get here really other than by tour or by car, which obviously I didn't have here, so I opted for the tour option. It was just me and this other couple from Australia which ended up working out quite well. It was like we had our own personal tour guide for the day. Our tour guide was great and took us not only there, but to another castle and some other beautiful spots along the way to stop. Now, I have to laugh cause at the first castle, I went to pay to get in and she asked "Student?" I replied "No, Adult." She then says, "No, family ticket is better." We tried to tell her that we were seperate, but finally just said that sure a family ticket was fine. The couple and I laughed about it cause they were old enough to be my parents, but here is the great part....to get the "Family Ticket" this is for 2 adults and up to 2 children between the ages of 7-18. I'm still getting people who think that I am in high school. Rundale Palace was like Versailes in Paris, very beautiful, ornate, and has gorgeous gardens that have been done in teh French style.
My final full day, I took a day trip over to the town of Sigulda about an hour away to see some more castles. This town is in a National Park Area called Guaga National Park. It was stunning, trees all over the place with some castle ruins and a partially reconstructed and excavated castle perched high up on the hill looking out over the entire area. There is a river that runs through the valley at the bottom. I decided to try and follow a walk laid out by one of my guidebooks to see everything so I got there and immediately set out. Part of it included a ride in a cable car that is suspended hundreds of feet in the air that takes you from one side of the to the other over all the trees, just breath taking to see. I tried to follow the map as best I could and ended up on these little trails leading me past trees, winding streams, and caves. Many times, it was just me a nature again. As I was making my way up to the main castle, I was getting slightly concerned because some of the trails on the map were truly not well marked in reality and didn't even look like trails as I was walking them. I had that thought that I really shouldn't get lost as it could be a while before anyone found me, but eventually I made my way up top and was rewarded with another great castle.
Latvia is home to a great Opera house which supposedly has some of the best opera shows in the world, so I decided to take in my first official opera show while here. It was really good and I was very impressed. Luckily, I think they get a lot of tourists as there were subtitles up top in the show in both English and another language, of which I am not sure what it was.
The group of people in my hostel this time has really been a lot of fun. One night I went out for drinks with two of the guys in my room and then last night, a group of about 10 of us went out for drinks. We went to this great restaurant that was excavated in the 1970's below the ground level. It is an old wine cellar that is hundreds of years old that they did not know was there until they started digging to try and build something else on top. Once it was found, they restored it and made it a restaurant instead. It is kinda touristy, but it is done well. We all had a good time with each other and were quite the mixed group. I meet me first Americans in this hostel while here and one was even from California, although now he lives in the Ukraine. We were laughing about that as when he arrived and we met, we started talking about where we were from and he says, "I moved to the Ukraine to get away from Americans." I was laughing and said yes, "I really was not expecting to meet other Americans here." Then he switched into Spanish and asks me "Eres Latina?" I was laughing and told him, yes, half. We thought it was funny that not only were we Americans over here where most Americans do not travel, but we are both hispanic and these countries do not have a lot of hispanic travellers here. Go figure.
I have decided that I think I have one of those looks about me that people don't quite know where to place me or where I am from. I have gotten asked 3x while in Lativa if I am a local by a tourist, really? I don't think I look Latvian, but alright. When people speak to me and I just smile and give them a blank stare, they then ask if I speak Russian (as that is the 2nd most common language spoken in this country). I shake my head no, then it's onto Dutch, German, and the last one asked is always English. Maybe it's just that English speaking tourists are not nearly as common here as tourists from other countries. Who knows.
Anyway, this city has been fabulous and I would highly recommend it for a visit. I was thoroughly impressed and pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed it. I love that I can walk everywhere. I can sit in anyone of numerous parks around the city and enjoy the sites and sounds. The sun is up here until 11pm (although winter here I am sure is terrible as there is only like 6 hours of sunlight at that time). It is small enough that you feel as if you know the city after just a few days. I hope that one day I can make it back here again!
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