When I was at the airport, coming home from a work-related trip, I saw someone looking for flights on their laptop. And I thought to myself that I hadn't really travelled that much recently and I realized that it'd be amazing to go on a short weekend trip
So I took my laptop out of my backpack, found a cheap flight to Riga and booked it.
I'm not sure whether the first day should count at all. I arrived on
Thursday at 11PM, so no sightseeing for me on that day. There were no
buses to the city centre after 10PM, so for 20€ I got Uber Bolt to
get to the city centre.
Getting into the hotel turned into a small adventure since the main doors were closed, the code I had been given to open them did not work and the phone number was invalid - even a random Latvian guy, who I asked for help in hopes that maybe there was something wrong with my mobile provider, couldn't call it.
And as (almost) always, the fault was mine. No, I did not get a taxi to
the wrong hotel. Turns out I kept pressing the wrong button on the keypad
next to the main door.
...
Yes, in one month I'll have a degree in Computer Science.
I woke up at 9AM and had to work for a couple of hours (it was Friday and
I didn't really take the day off). When I
finished copying code from StackOverflow was done working I headed
to the city centre to find a place to eat. I was still tired after having
had a long day the day before and in order to avoid a long, complicated
and mind-consuming process of choosing the right place with an interesting
cuisine and good reviews, I had McNuggets and french fries at McDonald's
located near The Freedom Monument.
Having satisfied my hunger I headed to the aforementioned monument. It was built in 1935 to honour soldiers who died during the Latvian War of Independence. On top of it you can see a female figure called Milda.
The Monument is located close to Bastejkalna Park which at that time of the year oversaturated my eyes with green (even though the trees and looked inviting, and I sure wasn't the only one who thought that, because there were a lot of people who were having picnics on the neatly cut grass.
Inside the park there is a small hill which you can climb and take a look at your surroundings. It's in no way tall enough to see the roofs and chimneys of buildings (sorry, chimney sweeps) but it still offers a rather picturesque view.
I climbed down and decided to go to the old town which is called Old Riga. It's the most picturesque spot in the city, both during a day and at nighttime when all the bars open and you can have good time with your friends.
If you're like me, and you enjoy viewing city panoramas, you'll end up on
top of the St. Peter's Church. Which is exactly where I ended up. The
church had been first mentioned in the XIII century and its construction
had a couple of stages, with the last stage happening after 1950.
The church has a 123-metre-tall tower and you can access the second
gallery at the height of 72 meters. The entry is a bit pricey and costs 9
euro but in my opinion the view is worth is, you can see the panorama of
the whole city. I personally found the side overlooking the Old Riga being
the most picturesque.
The church is a host to a lot of piano concerts. I wasn't able to go to one due to lack of time and interest but if that's your thing, the schedule is available on this website.
Since I was done with my list of things to see for the day, I decided to just walk around the old town for a bit.
Not much happened during the rest of the day, so let's just skip to the next day.
While eating breakfast I realized I had forgotten to see an important landmark on the previous day. Turns out I had walked next to it a few times without noticing it. Luckily it was located close to my hotel and I went there as soon as I could.
The landmark? The Cat House
Built in the early twentieth century, the building has two cats with
arched backs on top of the roof. According to the legend, the cats were
put there because the owner of the Cat House held a grudge with members of
a merchant organization. If you haven't guessed already, yes, the cats'
tails were turned towards the organization's headquarters.
Sadly, the owner of the house was later ordered to turn the cats around.
I wish it was possible to enter the building and see something cat-related inside. However, that's not the case - you can't enter the building and there are no cats inside (unless someone who lives there owns one - we will never know).
Having crossed this masterpiece out in my To See list, I left the
old town and headed a little bit away from the centre to visit the
Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ.
It's an Orthodox cathedral
surrounded by a small park and built in the XIX century.I'm not religious
at all, so it didn't make me feel anything, I have just come there to
check out what it looked like.
You aren't allowed to take pictures inside, which is a shame because there
were Easter decorations inside and (it's going to sound silly, I know)
everything kind of resembled the
RagnaRock nightclub in Max Payne (opens in a new tab)
Most of the people inside the cathedral spoke Russian. I felt a little bit like you were expected to understand the language, but maybe I'm just wrong. Apart from religious icons and Easter/RagnaRock decorations there is a mini shop where you can buy candles and other devotional articles
I almost forgot - on my way to the cathedral I saw a capybara! It was my first time ever seeing a capybara in real life. It had a cute green shirt and it was riding in a bicycle basket. Made my day.
The next location on my To See list was Pauls Stradiņš Museum of the History of Medicine. It's one of the largest medical museums in the world, and it's quite an interesting one. I was surprised even before I went inside - the building is located next to the Russian embassy and the owners of the museum decided to decorate the building with a big painting for everyone in and around the embassy to see.
The museum focuses mainly on medicine, there are four floors and each floor is dedicated to a different period. The final floor is dedicated to Latvia in Space. This is what had convinced me to visit the museum in the first place.
There were two people at the reception, both of them spoke good English and were very kind. I even got a student discount, despite not being a student of a Latvian university.
I visited each floor and saw the exhibits which portrayed medicine and tools used in healthcare throughout the history. I don't feel qualified enough to go into details about it and I didn't do much research before visiting the museum, so without further ado, please enjoy the pictures.
Some of the exhibits were a bit unusual, to say the least:
And finally, on the top floor, my personal crème de la crème - Latvia in Space:
It was about 11 in the morning when I left the museum and with a whole day
ahead of me, I continued my tour around Riga.
Across the street from the Russian embassy there is a building which at
first I thought was related to government or a NATO organization.
Next to the mysterious building there were two or three glass pyramids which served as an entrance to an underground car park.
To be honest, I didn't think much of it, and I've simply assumed it
belonged to the government and moved on. It is only now, at the time of
writing this post, when after looking at Google Maps and reading a bit
about the building, I realised the mistake I had made.
The building is called Riga Congress Centre and it is primarily used for
hosting conferences, conventions, concerts and other cultural events.
The next stop I made was very quick. I wanted to visit Café Leningrad, but it had been closed a few years before I came there. The only thing left was a sticker on a window. Of course, I had been aware of the fact before I added the café to my list, though I still wanted to at least walk past it.
Luckily, The Corner House, aka KGB Headquarters, which is where I went next, was open. It was built in the early twentieth century and during the Soviet occupation in Latvia during the Second World War it was converted to KGB offices.
There is no entry ticket fee if you just want to see the ground floor. The entrance to the basement, where prison cells are located, isn't free though, and you need to do it with a tour guide. Because of time constraints and my slight aversion to listening to tour guides I stuck to the ground floor, hence I didn't take a lot of pictures.
A few-minutes-long walk away from the KGB Headquarters to a residential district of Riga will take you to an unusual, 12-metre-tall sculpture. It had been first presented in 2016 as a temporary exhibit during a festival, however people enjoyed it so much that it stayed in the city forever.
Ladies, Lasses and Lassos, may I present to you Sam:
Sam is a sculpture dedicated to all animals which died as a result of humanity's pursuit of conquering the Space; no matter whether their hearts had stopped beating in the orbit (rest in peace, Laika) or here on our planet in various experiments.
Considering I had just finished visiting the museum with an entire floor dedicated to Latvia's role in Space exploration, coming to Sam seemed appropriate.
Other than Sam and a nearby pizza vending machine, there was nothing else to see in the neighbourhood. I decided to cross the Daugava river and see another part of Riga. I used a Bolt scooter to go across one of the bridges and ended up next to the National Library of Latvia which looked like it had been designed by an ancient, pyramid-loving Egyptian architect who was a fan of the Skate 3 game.
While one part of my brain kept debating if we (that is me and my brain)
should enter the building, the other part of my brain came up with more
interesting and more adventurous idea.
As you probably know, all things considered, Riga is located not that far
from the Baltic sea. Spring had already begun a month earlier. Why not hit
the beach and check if the water is warm? (spoiler alert: water in the
Baltic sea is never warm).
I quickly took out my phone, Googled Kagi'd
„latvia trains” and half-blindly bought a train ticket to
Jūrmala. Half-blindly because I chose the
first website which came up in the search results and I didn't really know
what I was doing; everything was done in a hurry because
I made it to the train station just in time, hopped on a train and a few
minutes later I heard the characteristic whistle which marked the
beginning of a new (sub)journey.
The train carriage was an older model than the ones in Western Europe, the
thing that surprised me the most is that it seemed wider, and it had six
seats in a row, which was two more than what I had previously seen.
About thirty minutes later I got off the train in Jūrmala and went straight to the beach. The closest entrance is about 10 minutes away from the train station. The town was really quiet and I enjoyed the walk.
There was one unusual thing which I liked and had never seen before -
there were benches on the beach! I wish they existed in other countries as
well, it is much more comfortable to relax on the beach in cold weather
when you are not on laying on a blanket and the sand is not getting stuck
inside every part of your clothing.
The water was cold but at least I touched it, and touching water in
different bodies of water is a hobby of mine, thus making the trip to
Jūrmala a successful one.
The train back to Riga was scheduled in about twenty minutes and about an hour later I was back in the capital. Though this time I got off one station before the main one, basically ending up next to the library where I had come up with a plan to go to Jūrmala.
The aforementioned train station is called Torņakalns (Tower Hill) and it's located pretty much inside Uzvaras Parks - The Victory Park. In the middle of April you are surrounded by the colour green and everything is blooming. Perfect place to relax and take a long walk.
There is a section of the park called Sakuras Dārzs - The Sakura Garden, and if you know anything about Japan, you know that „Sakura” refers to flowers of cherry trees.
I think I we there in the ideal time of the year, exactly when they started to bloom. I wonder what the park looks like in the winter though, snow can also have its charm
I spent about 40 minutes walking around the park, and then I literally ran to the nearest tram station to catch a ride back to the Old Town. I wouldn't have made it if the tram driver hadn't waited for me, so thank you, dear Tram Driver.
The park was the last item on my To See list. I had some time to kill which I used to walk around the centre, and then I took a bus to the airport.
Please enjoy the last couple of pictures:
I loved Riga and I hope this was not my last visit there. The city has a lot to offer, and you are guaranteed to be not be bored.