May 21 Riga, Latvia

 Our day started with a visit to the city markets, just outside the Old Town. Fish aplenty, both fresh and dried. Then cheeses and smallgoods, then fruit and vegetables and flowers. Most people live in apartments and can’t grow their own flowers so the market provides them in large numbers.

Dried fish of various types.

We then walked back to the Old Town to the House of the Black Heads. This was a trade guild back in the 14th century - made up of unmarried merchants, shipowners and foreigners. It began as a military society but later transitioned to a purely social organisation. It continued to meet until 1940. The building was destroyed by German bombs in 1941 and further damaged by the soviets in 1948 but was reconstructed in the late 1990s to its previous glory. 

 

House of the Blackheads

Riga Town Hall

   

St John’s Lutheran Church

   

St Mary’s church

Holy Saviour Anglican Church

Big Christopher, legendary founder of the city. 

Vans Bridge

Riga Cathedral

An old wagon and barrels sitting outside a beer hall

Three Brothers - 3 houses built at different times and in different styles 

but examples of the oldest dwellings in the city