today was the second and last day in riga. no tour schedule and we were free to do what we wanted to do. we decided to modify a walking tour offered by the guide book to incorporate some of the other sights we missed on the tour yesterday. in the evening, we would check off the list a latvian dinner and sampling black magic, the local strange liquor.

since nothing was scheduled, we slept in a bit and woke up just in time to grab breakfast at the hotel. it wasn’t raining but the cloud cover suggested it might later.

we made our way over to the swedish gate, which is a gate built in the 17th century and is the only gate remaining of the old city wall. the picture of the gate, featured on the right, is in most guide books and postcards.

next stop was riga castle where the president of latvia resided. the “castle” was located next to the daugava river. it had a few turrets, spires, and an gray and black stone surrounding it. wasn’t much of a castle but we walked around it to see if we could see in. at the front, two guards stood at the gate, and strangely, photographers and cameramen were stationed across the street. we thought about hanging around to see what would happen, if anything would happen, but decided against it.

we followed the walking tour path past the dome cathedral, which is just an amazing gothic cathedral with a baroque tower. the cathedral has the fourth largest organ in the world, which has 6768 pipes. the cathedral towers over doma laukums (dom is cathedral in german and larkum is square in latvian).

we continued past the cathedral, through the town square where the brotherhood of blackheads stood, into the true definition of a subway which was a walking path underneath the street next to the daugava river, and walked to the middle of the akmens bridge for a classical view of the old town.

to the right of the bridge was another bridge that reminded me of the new bridge in charleston, and to the left of the bridge was another bridge that resembled the zepplin hangars of the central market. the very tall tv tower is in the distance of the zepplin bridge photo.

we walked back to old town and just before grabbing coffee we went to the observatory at 72 meters high in the tower of st. peter’s church. the ticket was 5 lat (10 dollars) and old ladies were monitoring who was coming and going. they were the ticket gestapo.

while i took some pics of the interior of the cathedral and coat of arms, john had already walked through the door to the elevator. he came back to find me and the old lady started hassling him. then another lady asked to see his ticket. the rooms leading to the elevator displayed historical photos of the tower. one showed when it was on fire from a lightening strike. the tower has been rebuilt several times, and they finally did it right and used steel for the structure.

at the top of the tower, the wind was blowing and we had fantastic views of the city and surrounding areas. it was a much better vantage point than the skyline bar because there wasn’t a reflection to negotiate. most of the pics involved the old town but john got a few good ones of the tv tower and a large russian style building.

we had a nice coffee break at the double coffee place in front of the church. again, the bees came. what is with the bees? they are more interested in the coffee than you, but a few times they flew toward me and made me move. never fails, drink coffee, have bees. we started making a joke of it, saying it was one of my serfs from a previous life coming back to seek revenge.

on the way to the central market, john took a humorous photo of a statue and me, which is located next to st. peter’s church. the statue is a donkey, dog, cat, and rooster. can’t remember what the story was behind it, but the guide said it was good luck to rub the donkey’s nose.

the central market was filled with people and all kinds of food and housewares. i had expected some souvenirs but this was a common people place to shop. as we walked through the hangars, each one had its own category of food with a very pugent smell. one hangar was seafood and smelled just the same. another smelled oddily like pickles but i didn’t see any. another hangar was the meat hangar. the vendors had huge slabs of meat hanging from hooks. butchers were hacking the meat and the ladies wore tiny little white crowns. guys with big cleavers standing around. don’t want to mess with anyone in

that hangar. another hangar was everything else, which didn’t produce a smell. the grounds surrounding the hangars was an open air wal-mart with all kinds of things to buy. the clothing being sold was really bland and boring. i was hoping i could find some soccer shirts, and i did find one, but just one and it didn’t fit me.

after the market, we wandered back into old town and had lunch at the macaroni noodle bar, which is a trendy and hip restaurant with outdoor seating. unfortunately, they didn’t have macaroni and cheese, which i was half expecting. instead i had a tasty lasagne with a zelka. so far, i have had lasagne in three countries and i have to say, the best lasagne i ever had was from an italian restaurant in greenwich village called focacceria.

the macaroni noodle bar’s outdoor seating provided some serious people watching, and from everyone’s clothing styles, we were in a hip part of old town. the sun broke through the clouds and shined on my face. it was great sitting there relaxing and drinking a beer.

afterwards, we walked through the main park surrounding the freedom monument. the park has a river running through and decorative bridges spanning it. the park offers rentals of paddle boats and row boats. the park was very beautiful and manicured.

well, that concluded all the sights we wanted to see, so john headed for the sauna and i went to the internet cafe. the room was filled with a bunch of kids playing video games and yelling latvian? russian? i didn’t know. at first, i was pissed that i would have to deal with this noise, but as soon as i sat down, they left, which left me to wonder what was going on. nothing happened so i booted up the computer and worked on the site.

i finished up before john did, so i did some research on dinner options and a place to try the latvia liquor called black magic or riga balsams. when john returned, i rushed over to the restaurant i had picked out. i was starving. the restaurant called alus seta was located near the dome cathedral. the guide book said it had authentic latvian food, and indeed it did. it was a cafeteria style serving where you grab a tray and point at what you want. i got a sample of the different salad concoctions like potato salad, slow roasted chicken, sourkraut, mushroom gravy, tiny french fries and a .5 litre of their own brew called lido to wash it down.

oh, it was good. one of those meals you would hope never ends. the beer reminded me of the estonian brew i enjoyed called saku. as a bonus, the meal and beer was cheap. i would definitely come back if and when i return to riga.

ok, onto the bar where i could drink some black magic. i had left the piece of paper with the name of the bar back in the hotel, but i knew the general location. while we were walking around a building looking for the bar, a black cat crossed our path, and i immediately turned around. i’m not usually superstitious but when i’m in a foreign land where black cats are considered a curse, i general follow the rule to avoid them. john thought i was weird, but i didn’t care. i don’t need any bad luck. i rubbed the donkey’s nose and i didn’t want to counteract it.

we never found the actual bar, but we did find another bar that was across from the swedish gate called b. bar. the bartender pointed out several sections of drinks that had the black magic in it. i wasn’t expecting that. just give me a shot and we will be done with it. oh well, i ordered a drink called lucky balsams. the description sounded like a fruity drink, but it turned out to be a smoothie with the black magic in it. wtf? oh well. quite anticlimatic. we took a picture of the bottle and i switched to beer. while sitting outside, it started to rain. we waited for it to stop before paying the bill and leaving. as we were walking back to the hotel, john asked if i thought we would make it back before it started again, which i knew the answer right away, yes! because we didn’t cross the black cats path. i was right. it didn’t rain the entire time we were walking back.

riga was a beautiful town and i could have stayed longer, but tomorrow we are heading to rundale palace, an 18th century palace, before heading into lithuania to visit the powerful hill of crosses, a coastal seaside town of palanga and sleeping outside of the town of klaipeda on the coast of lithuania.