Got up at 7.30am after an excellent night’s sleep. We got washed and dressed and made our way to the hotel’s dining room for breakfast.
There was quite an unusual array of foods for breakfast; as well as the usual bacon, eggs, sausage, beans, cereal and toast, there was also green salads, charcuterie, vegetables and other offerings, more suitable for lunch than breakfast.
We enjoyed some bacon and eggs washed down with coffee and orange juice, and followed by a muffin. Then we returned to room #509 to change into warm clothes, socks and trainers, as today we would be doing a walking tour around Riga’s old town.
We all assembled in the hotel foyer for 9.00am, where Mike and our local guide Edgar greeted us. Then we piled onto the coach for the short ride into the main part of the city, which is famed for its wonderful Art Nouveau architecture, which makes up approximately a third of Riga’s total architecture.
Latvia’s capital has the highest concentration of Art Nouveau buildings than anywhere else in the world, which makes it an absolute delight to explore and examine. Most of the buildings date from 1904 – 1914 during what was a period of rapid economic growth.
As we walked slowly through the streets, Edgar pointed out various interesting features of the buildings to us. One building, designed by famous Latvian architect Mikhail Eisenstein, was most striking, with its pale blue highlights and incredibly ornate façade. Many of the buildings were multi-storey apartment blocks and contained sculpted features such as statuary, women’s faces, and cats. In fact, cats featured prominently on many of the buildings, as Edgar explained to us.
You will see cats everywhere in Latvian architecture, most famously at Riga’s Cat House (KaÄ·u nams). The story goes that a wealthy Latvian merchant was denied membership in the powerful Great Guild in the early 20th century.
To show his displeasure, he commissioned sculptures of cats with their backs arched and tails held high, positioning them on his newly built Art Nouveau building (Meistaru iela 10) to face the Guild.
The management of the Guild were incensed, and a dispute ensued, reportedly leading to a lawsuit, but the cats remained, eventually being turned to face the Guild’s building, emphasising their obstinate stance. This has made the black cat the unofficial symbol of Riga, representing independence, quirkiness, and character. As Sunderland supporters, this pleased Trevor and me, because the black cat is the mascot of Sunderland AFC and the nickname of the club is “The Black Cats”. 🙂
At we continued walking along, marvelling at this beautiful city, we came to the square with the large “RIGA” sign that we’d come across last night. Here, Edgar pointed out a café where we could buy a coffee “to go”, and also use the nearby restrooms. He said we had 20 minutes before reassembling and continuing our fascinating tour.
Once we’d used the loo and bought our coffee, we walked into the cobbled square and looked around. Edgar was talking about the distinctive buildings that dominated the square, in particular the rather unattractively-named House of the Blackheads.
The House of the Blackheads is named after the Brotherhood of Blackheads, a guild of unmarried merchants and shipowners who called themselves that after their patron saint, St. Maurice, a Roman legion commander traditionally depicted as a black soldier or Moor. They adopted this name and the Moor’s head symbol as their emblem, though they were all white men, to honour the saint, who was a martyr and a symbol of bravery.
The original building was erected in 1334 as a warehouse, meeting and celebration place for merchants. It was the biggest public building in Riga at the time.
What an interesting city Riga is! There is just so much to see. We continued walking around the streets until we came, once again, to the Christmas Market which we decided looked nicer at night when it was all lit up then it did during the day. Our tour finished around 1.00pm and Mike said we could either return with him to the hotel on the coach, or make our own way back. Trevor and I decided on the latter.
We found a pub and went in to enjoy a pint of the local beer; we weren’t really hungry and decided we could wait until our dinner tonight.
Then we walked around the shops, looking in the glowing, Christmassy windows. Soon we came across an off-licence, and decided to go in and buy a bottle of the famous Riga Black Balsam to take home. We purchased the “tropical” flavour; it was one we hadn’t tried yet. 🙂
It was around 2.20pm when we returned to the Avalon Hotel and ascended in the glass lift to floor five and our room, #509. We had something very important to do this afternoon at 3.30pm local time (1.30pm back home) but first, we wanted to enjoy a power nap, so we set the alarm to go off after 45 minutes.
A very dear friend of ours, Peter Johnson, whom we had known for 36 years, died suddenly recently, a couple of weeks before his 91st birthday. Peter was a founder member of our local walking group, Crook and Weardale Ramblers, and was a well-known and well-liked proper character. It was just typical that his funeral would take place when we were away!
But the wonders of modern technology meant that we would be able to live-stream the funeral on our tablet. So after our nap we set up the tablet and clicked the link that would take us to the funeral venue at Bishop Auckland crematorium. Once we had connected, we had five minutes until it went live, and soon we were looking at the front of the chapel, where we could see the funeral’s celebrant and the first two rows of mourners, and the bier at the front awaiting the coffin.
When everyone stood up, we knew the coffin had arrived, and soon it came into view. It was extremely poignant seeing a pair of Peter’s walking boots on the top of the coffin. It was placed on the bier and then the pall bearers took their seats to await the ceremony.
It was a lovely tribute to Peter and he had a fitting send-off, and we almost felt as if we were there.
Afterwards, we spent some time just pottering around in our room before going out again around 4.30pm. We hoped to have some time to visit the Riga Central Market; it was dark by now and we hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast, so we were ready for some grub. I hoped to find somewhere where I could buy a bowl of the famous “grey peas, onion and bacon” dish that is so popular in Latvia at this time of year.
We left the hotel and headed towards the huge hangars. It was just before five o’clock now and it looked as if some of the stallholders and merchants were closing up for the night, or getting ready to close. A sign on the door said the market closed at 5.30pm, so we only had half an hour to look around.
There were produce stalls as far as the eye could see, selling fresh fruit, flowers and vegetables. Then we came across rows and rows of seafood stalls, with fresh and smoked fish of all shapes and sizes. There was also a selection of hot food stalls and a place where you could buy draught beer. We had a look to see if anything took our fancy and we did see a stall selling the famed grey peas and bacon, but the guy looked ready to close up, and didn’t even acknowledge us as we looked at the menu on the wall. We decided to give it a miss for tonight and come back tomorrow if we had the time.
As we walked back along the underpass, we saw a small shop that was selling colourful hats, scarves and shawls. A grey shawl with a series of cute little cat faces caught my eye. It was beautifully soft and a bargain at 15 euros, so I had to have it. It was only later that I spotted the word “cashmere” on the label, so excellent value for money.
Walking back into town again, we wandered around looking at different restaurants and pubs. We saw a place called “Easy Wine” which was not only a wine shop, but was also an Italian restaurant. We liked the look of the dishes listed on the menu board outside, so we decided to go in, and a waitress showed us to a table for two.
Trevor ordered a tuna pizza and a local beer, and I ordered the Caesar salad with an Aperol spritz. The food was delicious and the portion sizes generous. We decided to have a dessert and another drink, and I chose the cheesecake. This time, however, I opted for the Black Balsam Spritz; certainly something I’ve never tried before!
It was after seven o’clock when we left the restaurant, and we decided to go and have a drink somewhere else. We found ourselves back at Alchimist, where we had been last night – we liked it there. Once again, I enjoyed a couple of great Aperol spritzes while listening to the eclectic music selection. One group in particular, whose name I didn’t know, caught my ear because they played the sort of downtempo, trip-hop music that I like. A quick Shazam told me they were called “Splean” and were a Russian group. I will have to explore more of their music when I get home.
We got back to the Avalon Hotel around 9.30pm and made our way to the bar, where we enjoyed some more drinks, including a shot each of the Black Balsam (original flavour). It really does taste like alcoholic Covonia, and we said we would have to get a bottle and only have it when we were loaded with cold and had a cough; it would certainly be a good remedy! 🙂
It was around 11.30pm when we returned to our room after another very full and interesting day. Tomorrow we were booked on an excursion to the Gauja national park, Latvia’s largest, which offered castles, cliffs and forests. The weather forecast didn’t look particularly good, so we’d be sure to bring our cagoules and wear our walking boots.
Once again, we slept very well.