Probably our favourite city in the Baltic states, old town Riga was absolutely stunning with its famous ‘art nouveau’ architecture making up almost 1/3 of all the buildings in the city. We explored the old town by ourselves as we ended up taking the alternative walking tour that didn’t cover the old town. On the walking tour, we visited the old market hall with its structure made from Zeppelin Hangars . We learnt that the Latvian government did this as they were quite poor and trying to save money at the time. We also walked around the suburbs right beside old town and the guide pointed out that the buildings are all wooden. This was purposely done as an old war tactic where burning the wooden buildings surrounding the old town would give the city centre (old town) an advantage during invasions. On Easter Sunday, we made a visit to the Latvian Ethnographic Museum to learn about traditional Latvian buildings and way of life and to observe some of their Easter traditions.
Huge Market Hall with lots of food stalls and produce.
The Latvians love their pickled vegetables!
Very colourful cafes!
The cycling beer tour!
TGIF platter for lunch.
Our van spot for 3 nights in Riga with beautiful vies of Old Town Riga!
Old communist building meant to house all the farmers' union.
We visited Gauja National park and its town of Sigulda, about 1 hour from the city. Again, we found a beautiful, secluded spot by the lake for our camp spot with a big fire pit. By accident, we discovered a pyrotechnic shop and went a little nuts on buying fireworks. It was also a one stop shop as we bought a fishing rod there too!
Handheld Fireworks.
Hiking in Sigulda.
Camping food cooked on the fire.
Latvian Ethnographic Musuem!
