easter in latvia

Last Easter I was in Vietnam, which doesn't celebrate it, and so I had a bit of a short long weekend. This year however it's an entirely different proposition. Sweden celebrates Easter with eggs, bunnies and witches and the usual 4-day weekend. (This isn't quite as good as Norway which has a 5-day weekend, but never mind, four days is enough).

After chatting to a friend from work, Feodor, I was invited to go to Rīga, Latvia, with him and a few others. This is very Australian thing to do I think: hit Europe and waste no time in trying to see as much as possible.

A few minutes later I was on airBaltic's site I found what I was looking for: a 5kr flight direct to Rīga. Five krona is around $1, can't do much better than that! We stayed in the "Metropole" hotel, famous in Rīga for being the only hotel that stayed open through-out Soviet and Nazi occupations of Latvia. In fact these occupations of Latvia have not been as disastrous on the local infrastructure as has occurred elsewhere.

Rīga comprises of "Old Rīga" which is pre-1900's and "New Rīga" which is 1900's onwards. Old Rīga is world heritage listed as it has well preserved examples of buildings from the 12th to the 19th century.

After the advent of gun-powder, city walls went out of fashion. In Rīga they turned land freed up by this into a series of canals and parkland. So the old town is now surrounded by wide cobble stoned boulevards with trams rolling along them, parkland and canals. It really was a picturesque town.

Over the canal, and past the freedom monument, is New Rīga, which has it's own architectural delights. In the early 1900's there was an art moment called Art Nouveau, or really when you are talking about the German inspired version it's called Jugendstil. It incorporates lots of long flowing lines, flower-like designs, and in Rīga there are faces incorporated into the designs. An example of this architecture in Melbourne is the City Baths.

The weather went crazy over the weekend too, and put on a real show for us. It snowed like it was the middle of winter.

The snow only served to enhance the city's beauty further. Did it matter that I don't have any clothes suitable for snow? Not really - when the worst of the came we could always pop inside for a beer.

Being a Baltic state, Latvia has a reputation for cheap alcohol. Although it's far cheaper than Sweden (2 pots cost me $20 in Sweden last night!), it isn't any cheaper than Australia. One Latvian lats is equal to $2.5 - not very favourable for the Australian tourist. Not that it deterred us. Some good nights out were had :-)