Saturday 29th of June 2019 - Riga (Latvia)

View from the cabin were we pulled up

The ship pulled up right in the middle of the old city (it's about a 15min walk from the ship to the centre of the old town).

Dave in front of the opera house

Riga has changed hands a lot in the last 800 years - Germany, Sweden, USSR.. and it's reflected in the architecture - there's such a mix of different styles and construction methods.

The new part of the city

The town has a nice feel, a bit sleepy (althought this could be because it's a Sat'd) - but nice and neat in most parts (aside from some obvious areas where the buildings haven't been maintained. 


Aparantly a lot of the city was destroyed in WW2, and a lot of the historical structures have only been rebuilt since independance from the USSR (the Soviets weren't interested in trying to maintain/repair the old buildings, preferring to knock them down and put up drab/utilitraian structures.



We took a walk through the old town, the cobblestone streets were traditional, but I imagine they're a bit hard on the vehicles!

One of the cats

The story we got behind the above picture (the cat with it's tail up) - aparantly one of the master craftsmen in Riga wanted to join one of the big guilds back in the day, but because he wasn't German and sufficiently wealthy they wouldn't let him (Guilds are basically collections of people in the same industry who band together, kind of like a union).  So anyway they refused him, so he bought the building opposite them, and commissioned a pair of cats to decorate the top of his building, so the view from the guildmasters office now consisted of two cats with their tails raised at him.  Anyway, they tried to get him to take them down but he said that they're cats so they'll face whichever way they like.  After some time they let him join the guild and mirariculously the cats started facing they're tails away from the guild.



The tour wasn't too long today but it was informative and Riga has a very nice feel to the city.