Living the high life.

Woke up this morning with the intent to head out early-ish and check things out. I actually managed to get downstairs this time for the free breakfast. Standard hotel/hostel fare in Europe. A selection of sliced meats and cheeses. Sliced cucumbers, tomatoes, and yellow bell peppers. A bunch of tiny pastries, hard boiled eggs, some sausages (though they were more like small fat hot dogs), cups of yogurt, and cereal. Drinks were apple or orange juice, milk, or tea/coffee which the gal at the desk would gladly make for you. Meh. It was good but the same as everywhere else for the last 9 weeks. I prefer to eat out and find different tasty vittles.

Fortified by my pint sized smorgasbord I headed to the Central Station to figure out how to hit the TV tower. I noticed in both here and Prague that when they decided to build a huge tower to improve TV transmissions, they decided to do it up right and make it into something cool. Every day I would look out over the Daugava River and see a huge tripod building sitting on an island. When the tour guide yesterday mentioned that you could go up into the tower, I realized I needed to check it out.

I managed to find a metro map and hit the tram car out to the island. It was a long walk down to the base of the tower, but it was along the river with no one around anywhere. No cars, no people, nothing.

Riga's way of saying, "Howse YOU doin' , baby?"

But it was a really nice walk. The chill in the air was just enough to balance out the exercise from walking, the river air smelled clean and wet, and the leaves on the trees lining the island were just starting to turn shades of yellow, brown, and orange. When I got the the tower, the gal was friendly but spoke absolutely no English. Likely she was bored out of her skull. Apparently, no one likes the TV tower this late in the season. I got a ticket to ride up to the first teir observation layer, along with two young Latvians that showed up just after she came back from a back room to find the pass to head up. 

The view was incredible, but the overcast skies and light fog limited what we could see of the city. I got some good pics though, especially of the surrounding island the tower was placed upon.

After wandering about the tower for about all of 10 minutes, us three had seen about everything that you could see - we headed back out to town. They drove off and I got another nice walk along the shoreline back. 

I then ended up hitting Riga's Central Market. In Prague (and I think here also) they called it the Russian market. I assume that it is due to most of the goods being Russian and that it is a traditional type of thing. Anyway, this market was huge.

The three quonset hut style buildings, each large enough to easily hold a zeppelin, was only the indoor portion of the market - maybe about 1/3 of it. The various vendors were loosely placed into similar groupings. The clothing section (marked out as pants, shoes, suits, etc,), the produce section, the meat section, the fish section, the miscellaneous section. This thing was monstrous. You could easily walk around for hours through the aisles. I didn't bother taking pictures in the market itself as it pretty much all looked the same as any outdoor market, except each booth contained only one particular type of item (plumbing, or children's toys, or what have you) and all the booths next to it had almost the exact same things. Since not a lot of folks spoke English, I suck at bartering, and they had almost no touristy stuff - I didn't bother getting anything. 

My plan at this point was to hit the history museum, but my shoes were sabotaging my plan. The back of the shoes was rubbing my Achilles's tendon and  it was starting to bleed. I had to detour back to the hotel to get a couple blister packs for it (with a quick stop in for a donner kebab). So this decided me that I would take a canal boat tour at the nearby park I had visited previously. 

The park was wonderful, just crazy gorgeous and the tiny boat docks held a couple of picturesque boats that let you see the canal running through the park and then down to the Daugava River in a loop. There was an electric boat with a cute English gal trying to get passengers, but they were the new folks or the block. Also a tad cheaper, but I liked the look of the other boat better - more viewing area. I would have changed my tune if I hadn't realized it was diesel before I paid the guy (he didn't speak English, so I figured I would just use his boat).

The boat trip was about 40 minutes but it was a cool view of the park and the area surrounding Old Town. Plus its good to just relax and bob in the water, enjoying the view and taking in the river air. Apparently it is duck season as they were out in droves. I missed getting a picture of Kung Fu duck. The camera was closed up and we were past before I could get a shot. Ducks usually sleep standing on one leg with their heads tucked in back. The guy must have been startled or something halfway through his routine and he was standing on one leg, the other straight out sideways, both of his wings slightly out - as if he was about to side kick the duck next to him. Also he had nunchuks,

Refreshed from the boat ride I headed over to see the OTHER high point view in town. There was a hotel a little ways up Brivibas Iela (which translates to Freedom Street), just past the Freedom Monument. On the 26th floor is the Skyline Bar, which has a view of Riga from the middle of downtown (similar to the Portland City Grill at Big Pink). I walked up to Hotel Raddison Blu Latvia, flew up the glass elevator, and strolled in to the bar to order a brandy and some Cesu beer (local). 

The view was incredible.

The pictures don't do it justice. You had a perfect view of the Freedom Monument and then past it Old Town. Beyond that were the two bridges, the traffic with its headlights on due to the overcast and rain. The other side of the bar shown over the rooftops of the newer city section, yet the buildings were mostly the Art Nouveau style. Simply beautiful. I probably spent about an hour sipping down my two drinks, enraptured by the overhead view of the buildings, headlights strolling over the bridges, and the slowly turning leaves of the trees below.

Enough of that - I ended up walking all over the newer part of town for many blocks after I got out of the bar. The buildings still looked cool, but it was neat to compare the ground floor view against what I seen from up top. I walked until dark, then walked some more to take in the night scene. After a while, my stomach told me that there was a donner kabob place near my hotel.

All in all, it was a productive day and I really do love this little city on the Baltic.