Riga is in its own way a very pretty town. Accomodation is fairly cheap, as is food. There is a good, large central market, where we as tourists always seemed to choose the older not so good stuff....
The interesting thing we realised about the Eastern European states is that stuff is really pretty similar in price. Your honey will be a better quality at the same price, having simply had the comb taken out of it, but otherwise the prices are kept down by qualitative differences. Just as Japan gets Australia's best and most expensive beef, Europe seems to get the better cuts and what we saw at the markets was all pieces of meat that cost less per kilo but were very poorly butchered. Imports cost the same as they would elsewhere in Europe, so are less affordable for the local population.
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| The view from the cathedral tower |
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| Shaslik bbq at the midsummer festivities. The lonely planet kept going on and on about this chain of restaurants (Lido), turns out that they really do have the goods. |
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| Midsummer market setting up early in the morning. Many people wore these traditional wreaths. Latvians love flowers, the difference is that that prefer a natural field mix to the very structured bunches of roses we see a lot of in the West. This means lots of grasses and often wheat are incorporated into bunches. |
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| We also went to a midsummer market on the other side of the river (new-er town) which was really nice, behind Julian is a traditional style wooden house. |
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