Wednesday, 10 October 2018

Day 6: Arriving in Riga

Our journey today started with taxis taking us to the port of Klaipeda. Just before we left the Curonian Spit we stopped at the small town of Juodkrante to have a look at these hay sculptures.


They are crafted by artists in the Spring and  are set on fire in Juodkrante Bay symbolising the defeat of Pagan gods. This takes place during the Autumn Equinox so we were just a couple of days too early to watch the festival.


The taxis dropped us at the bus station where we got on a coach to Riga, Latvia. It took 5 hours on the coach. As soon as we had registered at the hotel we all went to a restaurant for an early dinner. This time we went to a self service restaurant with a huge choice of local food.
After dinner Vadim took us to the Academy of Sciences from where we had a brilliant view over the city.






There is a viewing deck on the 17th floor which provided us with stunning views of the town.

You can see the Riga radio and TV tower, the tallest tower in the European Union was built between 1979 and 1989.












We stayed until the sun began to set.
It made an excellent start to our visit to Riga.

13 comments:

  1. It's a very impressive tower. I like the evening light in the latter photos.

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  2. Wow what a great viewpoint.

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  3. The architecture really catches my eye.

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  4. It's very beautiful, and I agree with William about the architecture being very interesting, too. :-)

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  5. I liked Riga very much it was the second stop in the Baltic countries, we started in Talinn. We haven't been up there, nice view over Riga !

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  6. Great views over the city. Nice sunset shots too.

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  7. That evening light gives such a nice view over the pretty city!

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  8. I've never seen straw sculptures afloat. Those were really neat, especially nice you got there before they were burned. Beautiful light to view the city from on high.

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  9. Crafty people in that area. It would have been interesting but a little sad to see the hay sculptures set afire.

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  10. Those figures in the water reminds me of an artist who does something like that. Just leafed through a book of his sculptures last night. Name escapes me though. You had a bird's eye view of the city.

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  11. I love the hay sculptures. I had never even heard of hay sculptures and love that they burn them later.
    I love the big tv tower.
    I learned a lot from your post, and got to see some great photos as a bonus.

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