Wanderung 31

We sailed into Riga early and admired the skyline with all the pretty church steeples. The notes on Riga that Linda had found on the web and printed, said that it was 2 kilometers to walk from the cruise ship dock (extreme upper left of map) to the center of town, and looking at her map we decided to walk up the promenade along the Daugava River and then cut into what appeared to be the Old Town district of Riga. When we turned left just after the old fort (number 20 on map), Linda and Jerry kept going straight to check on a possible local cruise.

But we knew that Monika's great-grandfather had had a syrup factory somewhere in the old downtown section of Riga in the late 1800s, and that her grandfather was born in Riga. So we wandered as many of the old streets as possible trying to step a bit into their history.

From Castle Square we kept walking inland, stopping at the small church of St Jacob (18 on map), which was small, cozy, and quite pretty. When we came out, we butted up against a police barricade in front of the Latvian Parliament building--not sure why.

Momentarily stymied, we backtracked past the Three Brothers (19 on map), three old Hanseatic-style buildings, and on to the Riga Dome or Cathedral (22 on map). Unfortunately, the cathedral didn't open until 11:00, so we forged onward across the cathedral plaza, where the house of Monika's great-grandparents used to stand.

We found a Tourist Information center next to Blackhead's House (1 on map) and finally obtained a map with a nice walking tour of Riga outlined on it, which is used as the reference map at the top of this page. Since we were already in the middle of that route, we decided to keep going on it a bit.

The next stop was Riga St Peter's Church, and it looked interesting inside but they charged a 9 Euro per person admission charge so we quickly gave up on that! We continued to St John's Church (3 on map), but parts of it were covered by scaffolding and it was clearly in the middle of restoration.

Right in back of St John's Church we were supposed to turn right into a gate leading into an alley behind the church, but that really didn't look like a street so we kept on. Of course, as you might expect, that unprepossessing alley was in fact the correct route, so in the end we had to backtrack and curl back around to see St John's Yard (4 on map), a pretty little courtyard right in back of the church, naturally!

We cut back through Painter's Street (6 on map), although we saw no sign of any painters, and turned left on Wagner's Street (7 on map) , where we DID see an old house with a plaque claiming that Richard Wagner had played there, as well as several other well-known musicians such as Berlioz.

Turning right we strolled down a nice, wide boulevard toward a small clock tower apparently sponsored by the main Latvian chocolate company called Laima (8 on map) and a rather impressive monument , which turned out to be the Freedom Monument (9 on map). Serendipitously we arrived just at the changing of the guard at 12:00, but the solemnity with which that was done matched the solemnity of the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the USA. I got the feeling that Latvia doesn't want to be overrun by foreign armies anymore!

A nice riverfront park forms the eastern boundary of the Old Town section of Riga, and since we were already on it, we followed the park promenade North a bit until we saw a sculpture of three nymphs dancing, although it currently had children hanging from it, and then crossed a pedestrian bride to Bastion Hill (14 on map). We climbed the small hill hoping for a good view, but the view was obscured by trees in full leaf.

When we investigated the curious red brick building with a sharply peaked conical roof across the street, we found out that if was the Powder Tower (13 on map), which I think more accurately was the powder storage magazine. Monika's coursin Christoph found documents for the Lietz family that stated Monika's great-great-grandparents lived in a house just behind that powder tower.

Monika's great aunt wrote in her memoirs that when Napoleon was rumored to be ready to invade the area on his march to Moscow, the Russian Hussars tried to burn down all the houses in the area, apparently as part of the Russian "scorched earth" policy. However, the incendiary device failed to ignite, so their house was spared destruction! Of course, that old house has now been replaced by the modern building just in back of the powder tower, but it has been a couple of centuries, after all!

From the powder tower we followed a long, yellow row building called Jacob's Baracks (15 on map) to an interesting gate called the Swedish Gate (16 on map).

Curiously, we had by that time come around in a complete circle and were right back at the Latvian Parliament building (17 on map). Fortunately, it was late enough that the security zone had been lifted and we could get close enough to take some pictures as it is a rather pretty building. Coincidentally, Linda and Jerry were there at the same time with an English-language tour that they had hooked up with.

Monika still wanted to see the Riga Dom Cathedral (22 on map), so we worked our way back to that and found out that the entrance fee was just 3 Euros, which I think was a bargain. First, we got to tour the very nice old church itself, which had some truly gorgeous stained glass windows with finely detailed faces done with Grisaille (baked-on painting). Those windows almost certainly had to be from the high period of making stained glass circa 1900, typified by Tiffany in the US and other artists around the world. I particularly liked a panel that showed a mother with two young girls in white dresses, because their faces were photographically clear and very typical of children! I could almost hear the mother saying, "Hush, don't make so much noise!" and the two girls saying, "Do we HAVE to?"

The second part of our entrance fee was the museum exhibits ranged around the gallery of the old convent adjacent to the church. The history of the church was covered over the centuries in great detail, but the exhibits ran the gamut from an old church bell, which I rather expected, to artillery, a huge brass rooster weathervane, and carved stone idol, which I definitely did NOT expect!

The third part of our entrance fee was the use of the modern, clean, functional lavatories, which should not be underestimated! The free public toilets in Riga were glorified pit toilets, and at least two of them were so offensive that they chased us away--we just couldn't stand it. The others we found were barely tolerable, so finding truly functional modern bathroom facilities was very nice after hours of walking.

By now we were hungry, thirsty, and tired, so we tried to find a place to eat or at least have a beer. But prices of entrees in the restaurants in in the plazas in the old section of Riga were in the 15-20 Euro range, which we felt was too high, and the price of even a 1/3 liter glass of beer was 5.50 Euro, which was outrageous! However, we chanced by a convenience store and found a 2-liter bottle of Sprite for 1.60 Euro and about 1 Euro for a 1/2 liter can of a local brand of beer. That was more like it!

We walked back to the ship past the beautiful suspension bridge reflectimg the late-afternoon sunlight. At the ship Monika put the beer in her purse with all of our electronics and metal stuff as camouflage, and I wrapped the 2-liter bottle in our fleece jackets and put my cap on it to disguise its outlines. Then we just headed back to the ship, hit the buffet to fill up a plate, and brought it back to our stateroom to have with our beer and Sprite.

We relaxed a bit after our meal watching the Riga skyline disappear as the Costa Pacifica slowly steamed back down the river to the Baltic Sea. Then we roused ourselves again for 4:30 craft activity, which was painting a Spanish-type folding fan. We both chose an outdoor theme of woods, trees, and mountains, but our styles varied enormously. Monika used a watercolor approach where she diluted the paint with water and achieved a delicate, artistic effect. Predictably, perhaps, I went completely the other direction and slathered on several layers of the paint thickly enough to get at least some saturation of the colors. Ah well, we both had fun.

We finally connected with Linda and Jerry at dinner time, and had fun talking about their experiences during the day on that English-language walking tour and afterwards. They still had energy, but we were completely whipped and headed back to our stateroom for the night right after supper.