Month: September 2019

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Riga, Latvia

I arrived in Riga on the ferry from Stockholm, with approximately 5 hours to see the sights before I shipped off back to Sweden on day 2 of the Waves of Darkness on the Baltic Sea music festival (a post about that to come).

Five hours to see a city is far from ideal of course, but thankfully the main sights in Riga are all within a pleasant walking distance from the ferry terminal.

First things first. In Latvia, ‘sveiki’ means hello, and ‘paldies’ is thank you. Latvian and Lithuanian are two of the oldest languages in the Indo-European language family. This means that linguists believe them to be the closest to the common root language from which most of the languages in Europe, India, and Iran have evolved. Because of this I noticed many words which appeared similar to English or French, however there were just as many which, like ‘sveiki’, didn’t seem to have any relation to languages I know.

Anyhow, Riga is beautiful. It was overcast and slightly rainy while I was there, but I didn’t mind in the slightest. I started with a walk to a slightly out of the way ‘Soviet-style’ restaurant for lunch. The interior felt like a throwback to the 60s, but in a chic, hip way like we might have in North America, so I don’t feel like it was modelled after the sorts of places that working class Latvians would have eaten during Soviet times. I ate a pork cutlet with fries, it was very simple and plain, but it sure hit the spot. I also tried the famous Riga Black Balsam, which is a herbal liqueur that is black. It tastes just as potent as the description suggests.

Riga is renowned for having the largest collection of art nouveau architecture in the world. I couldn’t define art nouveau for you, but it’s from the turn of the century and it’s very nice. I took a lot of photographs of it so that I don’t have to describe it (they’re at the end).

There is also a top notch old town in Riga (there will be many an ‘old town’ throughout my journey, something about Europe and history I guess…). In Stockholm the old town was incredibly touristy, with the bottom floors of every beautiful old building full of souvenir shops and cafes. In Riga’s old town it seemed like only every second shop or so was in your face tourist-land. Of course this is because Riga is a smaller and less popular destination than Stockholm, but it really improves the experience. The art nouveau district is just normal residential streets, poor residents.

I visited my first ever Orthodox cathedral. Wow. It made Catholic cathedrals look plain in comparison. Photography was not allowed inside, so I will endeavour to paint a picture with words. Upon entering the air is redolent of incense. Every bit of wall is painted with designs and images. Gold and light blue dominate. All around the walls are icons, images of saints wrought in gold and silver, each with their own candle holder so worshippers can light candles at whichever icon they prefer. Opulent and dazzling probably describe it best.

One of the biggest attractions in the old town is The House of the Black Heads. This was the home of the travelling merchant guild known as the Black Heads. Their symbol was St. Maurice, a North African, hence the name. It was destroyed in WWII and rebuilt in 1999, but you can still visit the original cellars.

Riga was excellent. I’ll be back in Latvia in a few weeks after I’ve been to Finland and Estonia, and I will gladly spend more time in Riga, although I also want to see more of Latvia.

Here are some photos.

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Stockholm, Sweden

Two days now in Stockholm. Luckily many of the museums are free, because the food is expensive. Groceries are reasonable, but my hostel doesn’t have a proper kitchen, so I’ve been eating out and ruining my budget. I just tell myself that I’ll make up for it once I get to less expensive countries.

I’ve spent my time wandering the streets and visiting museums and libraries. As mentioned above, many of the museums have free entry, so I haven’t bothered with those that expect payment.

The Medieval Museum was right up my alley. It is mostly concerned with medieval Stockholm, and includes a replica of what part of the city may have felt like back then. Not bad.

I stumbled upon The Living History Forum, it looked museum-like, and it looked free, so I stumbled on in. The current exhibition is about freedom of speech and it was ████████████ multimedia, ███████████████ █████████████ virtual reality ████████████████████████████ ██████████████.

The Mediterranean Museum contains a collection of ancient artifacts from Cyprus, much of them Greek and Roman, as well as and ancient Egyptian exhibit.

That was day one. Crazy.

I must say, Stockholm is pretty busy. Pedestrians cross the street with wild abandon, unmindful of traffic. Bicyclists weave between cars. Cars spend a lot of time stopping for people. It’s no large South-East Asian city, but the flow of people seems less calm and collected than I expected from a country known for simple design and a chill way of life.

Today, I spent hours wandering the National Museum and its massive art collection. As well as paintings and sculpture from history, it contained quite a collection of well designed items from the last century or so, most of it Swedish of course. Chairs, telephones, a jackhammer, cutlery sets. Things like that.

I saw that a church was having a free organ recital, so I stopped on in. Turns out the Church is dedicated to St. James, patron saint of travellers. Perfect. Although the church is called St. Jacob’s because in Swedish James and Jacob are the same. The music was quite good, but it was played on a small pipe organ, the size of a large wardrobe, rather than the church sized pipe organ that was available.

Anyhow, those are some highlights. It’s nice here. I fit right in until I can’t speak Swedish.

Click here for photos of Stockholm.

Click here for photos of the National Museum.

What am I doing?

I figure that to pass the time while I sit in the Toronto airport awaiting my flight to London where I will connect to Stockholm, I may as well start off this blog with a real post and let my adoring followers know what exactly I’m up to.

I don’t know!

Well, I have some idea. I’m backpacking around Europe for awhile, especially focusing on the Eastern and post-Soviet parts since they’re inexpensive and interesting.

I know what you’re thinking. “Stockholm, inexpensive!?”, you correctly exclaim, knowing full well that Stockholm is the opposite of inexpensive, out-expensive. There is a reason why I’m going to such a horrible, terrible, no good place however, and that reason is Waves of Darkness on the Baltic Sea. WoDotBS is a music festival of neo-folk, darkwave, and other dark, spooky music that is taking place on the ferry/cruise from Stockholm to Riga and back. Don’t know where Riga is? You’re probably not alone. Look it up.

Having seen this festival I’m gonna get the heck outta the Holm of the Stocks and head to the equally expensive but far superior country that is Finland. I like Finland. A lot. I need to go there for a while even if I can barely afford their glory.

After Finland… Wait. Look at a map, you’ll need it. I can wait while you find one.

Okay, after Finland I’m headed down through Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Then, to Belarus, a country which almost takes the post- out of post-soviet. From there, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Moldova. Moldova is the least visited country in Europe, but you know what is less visited than that? A country which doesn’t technically exist. Transnistria, capitol Tiraspol, is a sliver of land in eastern Moldova that has its own government, currency, and passports, but just can’t get the recognition it needs to be a real country. It really takes the post- out of post-Soviet. Thrilling.

I may pop into Ukraine if the mood hits, then back through Romania to Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Bulgaria. Heck, if I have time I might even go to Greece and Turkey.

This is my plan, so hold me to it.