Around the World in 8000 days: Riga, Latvia

Welcome to our travel blog. We are Tabitha and Nic. In 2011 we 'retired' in our early 40s and set off to travel the world. We spent our first year in South America and have been lucky enough to make two trips to Antarctica.

Our blog is a record of our travels, thoughts and experiences. It is not a guide book, but we do include some tips and information, so we hope that you may find it useful if you are planning to visit somewhere we have been. Or you may just find it interesting as a bit of armchair travel.

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Riga, Latvia

Art Nouveau in Riga

From Pärnu, we took a very inexpensive bus out of Estonia, and on to Riga, the capital of Latvia. We had been here before, some years ago. We struggled to remember exactly when, until Nic remembered that we had seen the football match where West Ham got promoted to the Premiership, so we looked that up, and it turns out we were there in 2005, which was actually quite a bit later than we had thought.

Back then, we had loved the city, so we had high hopes of enjoying it again. It also meant that we had done quite a lot of the sightseeing stuff before, so we didn't have to do it all this time, and we could just sit back and enjoy the Rigas Sampanietis (local sparkling wine) that we remembered so fondly from last time!

St Peter's Church, Riga

We arrived at the main bus station late afternoon, but that was fine, as we only had about a fifteen minute walk to our hotel, which was nice and convenient in the centre of the old town. This is another city where the old town is somewhat divorced from the rest of the city, so again, most things that you want to see are pretty close by, but then so are all of the tourists.

It took us a little while to orient ourselves from our memory of the city, partly because there had been quite a few changes in the intervening years, with a lot more cafes and restaurants having opened up. We certainly noticed the difference in the number of people. We had been here in May last time, whereas this was peak season, and of course Riga is far more of a known destination these days.

Black Cat Restaurant, Riga

We were a little disappointed to discover that one of our favourite haunts of last time was no longer here. We had spent some most enjoyable evenings in a bar called Black Cat, which had had cheap drinks, air hockey, darts and pool, and was open all night. We took full advantage of that one night, staying there until around 7am, when we returned to our hotel for breakfast, and then went to bed. So you can imagine that we were most disappointed to discover that, although the building was still there, it was now a fancy restaurant!

Art Nouveau in Riga

Nic had been quite looking forward to having some of the more interesting meats that he recalled us eating here last time, so he was a little disappointed when the wild boar on our first night was a little on the tough and flavourless side. We finished the evening off in one of the many cafes, getting just slightly irritated that the competing loud music emanating from various other bars and cafes in the vicinity, meant that we couldn't really enjoy any one lot.

The next day was spent largely pottering around the old town, poking about in some of the better souvenir shops, including a nice knitting place, sitting in cafes and checking out where we might want to eat later. We started the food off well, with lunch at a place called Pelmini XL, which was excellent.

Riga

As the name suggests, it serves pelmini - those little ravioli like bundles of filled pasta. It is a self service counter, where you ladle into your bowl however much you want of all of the various flavour fillings, which included pork, beef, chicken, vegetarian and cheese, and then give your bowl to be weighed to see how much it will cost you. The pelmini were very tasty, very filling and very reasonably priced, so it is certainly somewhere I would recommend.

We found some great little cafes during the day too, in the small but friendly Rocket Bean Roastery, and another near St Peter's Church. Nic was somewhat happier with his dinner this evening, with a tasty rabbit dish in a modern Estonian restaurant called Melna Bite. Sadly, my beef dish was rather overwhelmed by the pungent alcohol in the sauce; too much alcohol isn't normally something I would complain about, but in this case it was a bit much even for me!

Riga

We found an interesting bar in the evening, called Krogs Aptieka, which was nice for having more locals than tourists, but was a little short on range for what we fancied to drink, so we didn't stay too long. They have live music sometimes, so that would be a good night I'm sure.

The next day we made it out of the old town and into, well, an old bit of the new town. Riga is a great place for Art Nouveau, with a number of well restored buildings with lots of excellent details.

Russian Orthodox Church, Riga

After our fill of architecture, we stopped for a bit of lunch, and then strolled through the Esplanade park and past the Orthodox Cathedral.

As we could now feel the rain starting, we felt justified in stopping off in Miit Café, which turned out to be a happy choice, with good drinks, decent cakes and, had we wanted it, a cut price vegetarian brunch. They had a good selection of music playing, so it was easy to sit and while away some time until the rain eased off.

Gertrude's Church, Riga

By now, we were thinking about where we might eat this evening, so after passing by Gertrude's Church, which was quite impressive, but slightly diminished by being situated in the middle of a road junction, we set off to check out a few places we had seen recommended in the travel guides.

That was pretty unsuccessful, as most were either gone, or just didn't look as interesting as promised.

Riga

As it turned out, that may have been a good thing, as we went back into the old town, and ate at a place just behind our hotel, called Restaurant 1221. Despite its location, it was relatively untouristy, and good quality, if a bit more expensive than most places. Nic enjoyed his smoked beaver for his starter, and the mains included a very good venison with saffron pear. Afterwards, we tootled just down the road to the Cuba bar, where they had a reasonable range of rums at decent prices.

Torna Iela, Riga

On our last day, we wandered our way around some of the touristy sights, like the Powder Tower and the Three Brothers, which are three houses built in different periods of the 15th-17th centuries, that together make up the oldest group of houses in Riga. Nearby Torna Iela is good o take a stroll along too.

This is where, last time around, we tried the famous Riga Black Balsam, which is a 45% strong vodka based herbal spirit, that has a strange bitter-sweet taste, but can be quite interesting in some of their speciality cocktails. It is said to have cured Catherine the Great when she was ill during her visit to Riga. I suppose it is one of those drinks that is said to have an 'acquired taste', but it probably should be tried once at least.

Riga

While browsing in the shops, we found one just behind the Town Hall, that had a great collection of national dress, including a big range of the Latvian mittens. Different areas of Latvia specialise in different styles of mittens, and they had a map showing where each of them comes from. They also sell the materials for the national dress, which is a bit pricey, because it is all traditionally made, but would certainly be an original souvenir.

Overall, we still liked Riga, but if we were to visit again it would be out of season, so that it is a little less busy.