We arrived on time after a slow, basic and fairly noisy train ride from Valga (there was a loo though, at least!). The day had changed abruptly from cool to hot and humid (at least allowing me to get the benefit of my convertible trousers!) so by the time we reached our apartment building, we were ready to refresh ourselves. Unfortunately, our apartment was locked…and it transpired that it had been taken either mistakenly or simply rudely by another group, leaving us with the apartment below, rather than the penthouse. It’s tricky to know what to do in this situation – torn between a) telling the guy to sort it out and tell us when it’s done, b) walking away from the whole mess, refusing to pay anything and finding another hotel room, c) accepting the other room but refusing to pay anything for it or d) being reasonable. Of course, I went with option d) (we took the lower room and he knocked 70 euros off the original 230 euro total). But in SO many ways I would have liked to have gone with any of the other options!
The apartment itself is nice, with one massive drawback… which may be true of the penthouse too… although I think less so (and unfortunately, I didn’t spot this as I was negotiating reasonably with Sigmar). It has no curtains, but LOTS of windows. In July, sunset is 10pm, sunrise is 5am, so it barely goes dark at all. Thank goodness all four of us have eye masks and are used to wearing them, but still, it’s a bit shit to be trying to get to bed in a fully lit room. So watch out if you go for the Doma Square apartments – and hopefully they’ll have changed their system where they leave all the rooms open and effectively allow the first-comers to pick the apartment they prefer the look of. 😟
If our entire trip was the weekend in Riga, this would be a big deal…but as it’s a small part, it will not be difficult to move on from this most minor of setbacks. 🙂 Oh, and the apartment has the plumbing & electrics that are modern, but wildly out of sync with UK standards! Check out this photo from the bathroom that is NOT AI-generated:
Riga is a lovely surprise. Obviously the components are familiar – cobbled old town, historic buildings, mix of traditional restaurants plus burger and pizza places – but it’s really nice! It’s very outdoor – real café culture, cheery people out and about, nice parks abound, good use of the river (Daugava) and tributaries/canals so it seems very peaceful. It’s less hectic and construction-heavy than Tallinn, so it seems a bit more comfortable with being a historic city with a good tourism business, rather than Tallinn’s attempt to become the Seoul of the EU (which works for some young Estonians, but leaves a lot of the older folk nonplussed).
The first afternoon, once we’d got past the apartment fiasco, we walked about a bit, then yes, we ended up in a pizza place, which was perfectly serviceable, and I tried the local liqueur “Balsam”. I tried a blackcurrant one, and it was warm, and very tasty, a bit like French troussepinette.
Next day, I had a very pleasant run, and afterwards I decided to take coffees back and saw a Costa. “Why not?” I thought – I was delighted to see it was familiar… but with the big difference it was fully licensed! It offered Aperol Spritz, Bacardi, even draft beer!
Once ready, we found an excellent pastry place (Rigensis) for more coffee and breakfast.
We then meandered to the central market which is huge, spanning 4 or 5 big halls (fish in one, dairy in another etc) plus open areas with fruit & veg & more. It was all very tempting, but we managed to restrict ourselves to apricots (good, but not Noirmoutier quality), strawberries (small, dark, excellent) and blueberries (a bit tart…but they all disappeared).
We strolled back via a bar (so I could wash my hands which looked like a serial killer’s, as I’d been hulling and handing out the strawberries!) to get to the Cathedral to listen to a bit of organ music (20 minutes, at 1pm). We were all rather impressed, and need to understand better how organs actually work. Where does the wind come from? How come the keys and pedals sort of do the same things and are linked, but there are 4 keyboards? Who knew you could actually play quite complex stuff just using the pedals? 🤯
A quick pitstop for lunch (Big Bad Bagels – great, the make their own bagels, it’s all fresh, they have a loo and some outdoor seating, plus they sell a first rate local cider) then on to the main event. This was another slightly random one I’d discovered somehow by looking for craft options in certain places. This was a silk screen printing workshop at the Museum of Decorative Art and Design. Initially things looked bleak, as the lady selling entrance tickets looked blankly at me and said the person who’d arranged the workshop with me didn’t work Saturdays…but she phoned her, and lo and behold, all was well, she soon appeared with all the materials required.
I do worry a bit about art & craft at the girls’ school. The school is great at the main subjects and music and performance stuff…but your traditional art doesn’t get much of a look in. So given my mum is an artist and art teacher, I always feel the impetus to bolster this aspect of their education. Plus being creative and making stuff is good for everyone!
This workshop was great – Kortnije (who was fine with “Courtney”, her English was exceptional and accentless) told us the background of the museum (it opened in 1989, so part of the visible loosening of Soviet control that preceded the imminent fall) and a bit about Ansis Cīrulis, who apparently introduced silk screen printing to Latvia, designed the flag and also the first Latvian postage stamp! A high achiever, indeed.
The girls, frankly all of us, enjoyed the process of silk screen printing onto the T shirts we’d bought from H&M for the purpose. Creating (and learning!) is so satisfying.
We also checked out the other floors, such an interesting diversion we wouldn’t have considered without the workshop. Clearly Latvia has long had a bit of a knack or habit for artistic product design, and great to see it showcased so thoughtfully and well.
Ice creams at Molberts (“the best ice creams in Latvia”, according to Kortnije – and they were very good, no question!), plenty of play in the playground, then dinner at Lido. Lido is a self-service place, right in the centre, and very popular. It’s good, simple, plentiful and affordable. We need more places like this on our trip! 🤣
Timsformational 