Days 42-43 - Riga

We are back from our weekend in Riga. It was awesome. Since we already were there last year, I will not get into a lot of detail but just mention the highlights.

The ride there was really fast. Georgia slept the entire way. We got there in less than 3 hours. We were staying at the same hotel BB-Riga. If we will come back here, it won't be the same place. In addition to it being pretty out of the way and located on the street with major hooking activity, the staff has a "can't do attitude" that's a bit annoying. We changed the itinerary a few days ago to spend one day less here, and they did not keep a record of that. So when we came, they went into full problem mode talking to each other in Latvian with very concerned looks for a good half hour. I kept asking if there was a problem and they kept saying no, no and continuing to talk. For all I know they could be talking about the cliche topic of about the market situation. Later I came to ask for a remote for our TV and the same story repeated. The guy at the reception had a concerned look, called somebody and spoke to them for a while, leafed through the notebook, searched in the drawers. Eventually I did get the remote, but why do they have to go through these motions?

Then we walked to the city, stopping on the way to get some candies and marchmellows from Laima (a major reason for the trip), ice-cream, and coffee and delighful pastries from the kiosk on the first square on the way.

Apparently in our last two visits we somehow skipped about 30% of the old town. Now we discovered Jacob's streets and other surrounding areas. Without a question, it is one of the prettiest cities in Europe. I also think that living in one city for so long, got us more in tune with looking more carefully at the details and trying to find the beautiful smaller places that are not so apparent when you just hit the main tourist stops.

Some of the other things we found was that a river used to flow right through the middle of the old city. It was covered in the Middle Ages. Must have been very interesting with all the sewage floating around. The basements around the former river bank most likely still have the evidence of being next to the port. We walked into some archway with high-end retail places and saw the sign hanging and some pictures.

There is a whole row of streets of un-restored storage facilities of the city. With multiple floors and little windows through which to load the goods, these are some of the more authentic witnesses of city's ancient history. Though, unfortunately, most of these are nothing but a shell of the outside walls.

We also found Juffin's 12 restaurant for the fans of Max Frei out there. Supposedly it was named so after the book came out. The location and decor seem be very close to how the place is described in the book. The author of the book even provided the review of the place. We circled around the place twice but decided not to go in. To be honest, the "standard" Italian menu that hangs outside did nothing to entice us.

Instead we headed to RozenGrals for lunch. It is a beautiful medieval cellar restaurant. It used to be directly connected to the former river bank. Inside, the setup is impeccable with enormous chairs, old weaponly and tapestries. And perfectly trained staff in the medieval garb. We wanted to go to there during our last trip. But we were with a dog, and they don't allow that. Though no one would even notice a dog in a semi-darkness only lit by the candles.

The menu is huge part of the experience. Some of the names of the foods and semi-historical commentary make you want to try to systematically consume every item: Favorite salad of Jacques De Molay Ls 9,60/Salad for Jacques De Molay, the Great Magister of the Order of Knights Templars which was made of roast beef, Parmesan cheese spiced in herb vinegar (13-14th century). Though the waitress almost ruined the mood. When I asked for an "Apple drink with honey and mint leaves," thinking it would be some kind of the special medieval drink, she said "Oh, the compote." But the rest was great. They brought freshly baked and still warm bread in the individual linen bags. Could not resist swiping the menu to relive the experience after the digestion process is completed.

On the square near our hotel there was a street fair. The artisans were selling lots of different handicrafts, linens, toys, jewelry and such. Lithuanians do a far better job as far as the esthetic beauty of those things is concerned. The dresses were kind of ugly, the pottery all utalitarian, and the prettiest of toys exported from LT. There were a few places selling sturdy pieces of wood shaped a bit like Irish mazes, but simpler and often not more complex than swastika, which they had some of as well. When we approached one of those stalls with Georgia, she asked what those were for. Without giving it another thought I said it is a coaster for the teapot. The other customers gasped, the seller was offended. He said those chunks of wood are to be hanged around the windows because they bring luck. I guess you have to make sure it is not too windy or this thing will knock your windows right off for luck. The specific kind of luck like health and love is written on each piece of wood. I apologized as much as I could. In acknowledging his making peace with my faux pas, the seller added that you could use them for the purpose I had mentioned, but it won't guarantee results.

We walked back to the hotel to unload the candies and rain jackets. The latter was a mistake. When we got back to the old city and spent some more time walking around, it started to rain. We ran back with a periodic stops at the coffee places on the way. There seems to be the absolute rule of the rain as it applies to the coffee shop. You could stand in the archways and entryways of the houses for all you care without seeing any break in the rain. However, the minute you walk into the coffee shop AND order, the rain stops. It instantly resumes the moment you walk out. Tested in Vilnius and in Riga.

In the morning Dan replicated his morning run to the local collector hill with the same negligible results as in Vilnius. Meanwhile Georgia and I got up, packed up and got out to the coffee shop across the street to get the B (the breakfast part of the bed-and-breakfast) taken care of. The hotel gives you vouchers for breakfast that you can utilize across the street. There, an extremely unpleasant woman had put in a saucer a few least attrative pastries from the vast selection that was available. By that time Dan joined us. He asked if we could pick other ones and the lady said no. He asked how much is one our voucher and she said 3LVs. So he said we are picking our own pastries. For all we know, someone already tried to eat these. So we made her pick out the pastries and coffee for us based on what we wanted. They were really inexpensive and super delicious and we could have gone for the seconds, but she was so unpleasant and sour faced that we decided to keep going.

There was hardly a person one the streets and most of the stores and museums were closed. So we decided to head back and stop in Rundale and Mezotne palaces on the way.

Rundale had been likened to the Versailles of Baltics and Versailles it is not. Apart from looking pretty from a far, it is a tasteless imitation on the closer look. The stairs and carvings are wooden but colored to look like plaster and marble. The tiles on the fireplaces in all the rooms are the same blue color, regardless of the color of the wallpaper and the rest of the room. It is like someone ordered a mass quantity of blue tiles for the whole palace. And there are plenty of tasteless decorations on the walls intermixed with a few gold-gilded-frame paintings. Anyway, it was pretty sad. They charge to visit the garden separately, and after taking a look outside the window, we decided that it would have been a better idea to spend a few more hundred dollars and go see the real thing. In that light we decided to skip on Mezotne palace, which was supposed to be a more modest of the two and continued our journey back to Vilnius.

There, we were greeted by the crowds of people getting out from the unauguration of the first Lithuanian woman President. Will see if she makes things better.

It was raining for the rest of the day and we stayed in relaxing.