Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Riga

  • Riga – Konditoreja Sala

    Located next to the city’s main railway station is this under-stated outlet from a small local chain.

    Those eclairs looked rather delicious…

    So one of the eclairs found itself moved from the counter onto my tray. The staff member rather over-poured the latte and got a bit enthusiastic with the steamed milk, hence the slight spillage. But all tasted fine and she was particularly friendly and helpful.

    It’s only a basic cafe in a railway station mall, but it was spotlessly clean and reasonably priced. They also had a range of salads and other items, but they didn’t look quite as appealing at the time as the banana eclair.

  • Riga – Rienzi

    This cafe is in the heart of the city and appears to be connected to the department store located next to it. It felt just a little more formal and impersonal to the other cafes I’d visited, although the atmosphere remained welcoming.

    Some of the individual sweets on offer.

    The staff member came around the counter to the customer side to explain what each of the cakes were. And they were very tempting….

    So I ordered one. Salted caramel cake, which was moist and tasty.

    This cafe was a little more expensive than the countless others that I’ve been to this week, but the quality of the food and drink was high. It didn’t have quite the unique charm that some of the other cafes had, but it was still rather pleasant, reminding me of cafes in Russia.

  • Riga – Kuuka

    Back to coffee after a couple of pub visits, this is Kuuka Cafe….

    There were several people using the cafe to do work, and it was a quiet and comfortable atmosphere. There were also numerous plug sockets and I can imagine it’s quite a productive environment. Although there were clearly some tourists in the cafe, it also felt like a place that locals went to and not just somewhere set out to cater to visitors to Riga.

    The display of cakes, with everything in the cafe being clean and organised.

    A blurry coffee….. The service was efficient and, as I’m becoming used to in Riga, polite and welcoming.

    And the cheesecake I went for, rather lovely. The cafe is relatively small, so I can imagine that it’s often hard to find a seat (when I went in the mid-afternoon I managed to get the last table). The cafe is keen on being independent and not part of a chain, and it did have a unique sort of charm to it.

  • Riga – Bird Photo

    Whilst waiting for my tram back to the hotel, this bird appeared on the wall. How lovely.

  • Riga – St. John’s Church

    There has been a religious building on this site since the thirteenth century, with the Catholic church functioning until 1522. That was the year of the Reformation in Riga and the building was taken out of religious use and for a time was used as a stable for animals.

    During the Napoleonic Wars the Russians used the building as a warehouse, but it was again later brought back into use as a church. Indeed the church has gone through numerous fires, restorations, rebuilds and improvements. One of these restorations took place after the end of the Second World War, when the roof and floor were badly damaged.

    Slightly irritatingly, there were information boards around the church, but some of them were in the roped off areas. This isn’t an ideal situation for a visitor, but the two information boards that were readable were interesting and informative (as an information board should be….).

    This is a donation billboard from 1761, thanking those who had contributed to paying for a new church organ. The church refers to it as “the oldest known social marketing in the city”, although there are some boards like this in the UK as well, but they were sometimes more to prove that the donor’s money hadn’t been pinched by the church staff….

    The nave stands 26 metres high and this is a fine example of Gothic rib vaulting.

    The pulpit.

    The organ.

    The nave, albeit slightly lop-sided (the photo, not the church). It’s a fine church right in the heart of Riga, today used by the Lutherans, although more information boards would have perhaps improved this visit.

  • Riga – Peter’s Brewhouse

    I had noticed this brewery restaurant a few days ago, but it is right in the centre of the tourist area, so I did have some doubts about it because of that. However, the reviews seemed reasonable and they brew their own beer, so what could possibly go wrong…

    They had an offer on during my visit where a sample of the brewery’s three beers was €5.50 instead of €7.50, which is competitive.

    Details of the three beers, all of which were at the appropriate slightly chilled temperature and had a depth of flavours. I thought that the red beer was particularly strong and was my preferred option of the three.

    A quick snack, these are the wild boar sausages with a beer sauce. They were excellent, although a few fries would have been handy.

    A brewery tank in the pub.

    The interior looks a little grand here, but there were a range of seating areas, including a substantial external beer garden. The service was attentive, friendly and polite, although it was rather quiet during my visit with only a few other customers.

    My initial concerns about the restaurant being too touristy were unfounded and the prices were reasonable given the central location. The restaurant was also clean and comfortable, with the food being better than I had expected.

  • Riga – KwakInn

    KwakInn is a small Russian chain of Belgian beer restaurants, with the first one having opened in St. Petersburg in 2009.

    An Asterix style menu, colourful and fun.

    “Life’s too short to drink bad beer”.

    The interior design is colourful and vibrant, it all seemed well thought through. There’s table service offered for those not sitting at the bar, and the staff were efficient and pro-active. It’s a friendly environment, and there seemed to be both tourists and locals in the bar when I visited.

    One page from the beer menu, which had around ninety options to choose from. That’s also a decent selection of dark beers.

    This beer was a special, allegedly made by monks using holy water. Whether or not that’s entirely true, it had a rich and pleasant taste.

    Gulden Draak, a popular drink in Belgium, which had a caramel and coffee taste to it. There are meant to be tones of chocolate, but my palate clearly isn’t sophisticated enough to detect them.

    The warm chicken salad, which was well above average. The salad was reasonably well presented, with the dried orange slice being an interesting addition. The chicken was excellent, tender and having a depth of flavour, with the onion and croutons adding texture. The bacon was succulent and the hot elements had been separated from the lettuce to avoid it becoming limp.

    The chain looks like they’re interested in franchising out the brand, and I can imagine this going down well across many eastern European cities. The branding is clean and bright, and there’s a fun feel to the whole operation.

  • Riga – Riga Zoo

    I haven’t brought my proper camera on this trip, so the quality of the images isn’t quite what I’d like. By that, I mean I haven’t been able to zoom in on the animals to try and get their expressions, so my phone images will just have to suffice.

    Nicely lined up, these are Denny’s tree frogs.

    A rhinoceros snake.

    Weaver ants, the photograph shows the magnifying glass the zoo had provided to help see them more clearly.

    Crocodiles.

    Two pythons.

    This cat followed me for around ten minutes, and I just had to hope that it was a cute domesticated pet cat and not some wild lynx that had escaped.

    A marbled crayfish.

    This exhibit showed how animals, often endangered, are treated as commodities. In this case, these are alcoholic drinks with a snake in them. I can’t say that I’d be tempted to drink them.

    I liked that this zoo had made a real effort to showcase its history, with old plans of the zoo and images from over the last 100 years. They also had photos of the buildings around the site and explained their previous use. I can’t recall visiting any zoo with such an interest in its own heritage.

    A red swamp crayfish.

    A zebra.

    Urgh. A green python.

    A bird-eating spider.

    A fennec fox.

    A marsh frog.

    A common crane.

    A very sweet owl who was very careful to watch me.

    Palla’s cat.

    A Southern tamandua.

    A sunset grasshopper.

    Flower beetles.

    An emerald-green tree frog.

    An owl.

    This was very cute, I was rather tempted to get myself one, but it’s probably not the best idea. It’s a brush-tailed bettong.

    The view from the rear of the zoo over the lake.

    A walking stick insect.

    A European pond turtle.

    A leopard tortoise.

    The entrance fee to the zoo was €7 and it was pretty quiet, although a Monday morning in October is never likely to be too busy. The staff member at the entrance seemed particularly buoyant and everything was well laid out. Visitors are given a free map of the site and the signage is reasonably clear.

    The only slight negative was that some animals were clearly asleep inside and there was no real chance of every seeing them, as some enclosures didn’t have the facility to go inside. So the polar bear, tigers and lions were nowhere to be seen, which is perhaps though rather beneficial to their well-being in any event.

    Overall, a rather lovely zoo, and there are some improvements being made at the moment to improve the enclosures. One of the original ideas for the zoo a century ago was for islands in the lake to be turned into reserves for the animals, an intriguing idea that didn’t happen at the time due to a lack of finances. Perhaps over the next couple of decades the idea could come back onto the agenda.

  • Riga – Skonto Hall and Skonto Stadium

    I don’t know many people who watch Eurovision, but for anyone who does, this is where it was held in 2003   🙂   The result was probably quite exciting, Turkey got 167 points, Belgium got 165 points and Russia got 164 points.

    Next to Skonto Hall is Skonto Stadium, which has been the home of the Latvian national football team since 2000. It was also home to Skonto FC, but they went bust in 2016, despite it being a substantial football club.

    The biggest crowd the stadium has ever obtained is 9,000 people back in 2003, so it’s not exactly Wembley. But I’m sure it is a location of great national pride, and I might have even gone to watch a match there if one was on. But there isn’t, so I won’t.

  • Riga – Museum of the History of Riga and Navigation

    Another day, another museum!

    This is the wreck of a single-masted ship, sunk in the old Riga port. It dates to around the thirteenth century.

    Wooden anchors from around the same period.

    This is dross. I never knew that this word derived from the residue left from metal working (or more precisely from melting iron).

    Bits of stone from the city’s original cathedral, these date from the thirteenth century.

    St. Christopher.

    One for all the civil engineers out there… It’s a wooden pile from one of the city towers, around 800 years old.

    One of the twenty military drummers ordered by the town council in 1688. When someone approached it the whole thing would move, which is a bit of early technology…

    A set of keys to the city gates of Riga, where were ceremoniously presented to Catherine II, Empress of Russia, when she visited the city in 1764. History doesn’t report whether she sneaked into Riga and gave them a try.

    There’s a long story to this exhibit, which is the wooden sculpture of Madonna on a Crescent Moon dating to the late fifteenth century. It is thought that this was originally placed in Mary’s Altar under the bell tower of St. Peter’s Church in the city. It is an enormously important object to the city and in 1930 it was given state protection, which recognised the relevance of the sculpture and it prevented it being damaged or moved outside of the country.

    Although efforts were made to keep the sculpture in Riga, it was stolen by the Germans in 1944 and went on show at the Lübeck Museum in St. Anne’s Priory. It remained there until a forward thinking German museum representative pro-actively arranged for it to be returned to Riga, where it is safely back on display.

    The former lock and key to the Bishop’s Palace.

    This is a bit controversial, which the museum recognises, and is said to be one of the earliest Christmas decorations in existence. Riga has a particular claim to this, as the first decorated Christmas tree in the world was placed up in the city by merchants in 1510. It’s really a stone ball from around the seventeenth century, likely originally a ball used in a game which was then drilled through.

    I’m not sure whether Liam will show this to Dylan, but it’s the rather, er, unique exhibit of two hands that were cut off money forgers in the sixteenth century.

    This photo is taken from the gallery of the former city library, given to the museum in the early twentieth century.

    And this photo is of the ground floor where there were once thousands of books.

    This is a fantastic museum and I spent over two hours here quite happily. There are English translations available for nearly everything and the building itself is interesting as it was originally part of the Bishop’s Palace and parts were then later used as a library.

    I also liked how there’s a book showing how the museum used to look, and how things used to be displayed. This is a clever idea, and the displays of the past were very different to today, with less information being provided to visitors. The museum is also one of the oldest in Europe (it dates back to 1773), despite losing a part of its collection during the Second World War.

    There are also two rooms dedicated to the sea and navigation, although by the time I got to those I felt I had seen more than enough. The entrance fee was €5, which seems very reasonable given the size of the museum. I also liked how easy the museum was to navigate, although they gave visitors a map anyway, just to make it easy.