Latvia, a jewel in the Baltic crown....

Hi All

Latvia is a wonderful country, really pretty, lovely buildings and extremely cheap... I love it!! I have no idea what I was expecting, but nothing like what is here, the buildings are really beautiful, the soviets didn't destroy them, they did build some really ugly ones, but the older ones still remain. I think I expected it to be way poorer, no fashion and nothing worth seeing, I was wrong. It has been 20 years since the soviets left, Latvia is breathtaking, but they are in financial trouble at present. Their money is strong though, 1 lat (or whatever it's called) is worth 2 dollars, but things are very cheap to buy. A packet of cigarettes was 1 lat...

We did a tour of the city, the buildings were lovely, the parks were magnificent. The old part of town still has the cobblestones and the streets are quite narrow.


Wonderful old buildings..


Lovely old streets..


Beautiful parks

We then did an afternoon tour to an outdoor museum, with original old homes and farm buildings that have been brought in from all over Latvia. Some of them were wonderful, I could live in them myself, really rustic but very practical.


A Latvian farmhouse, with an old man making wooden toys to sell.


Inside one of the homes..


An impressively carved sleigh


A child's walker, how cool is that? we think the adult entertainment was leaving the kids in here for a few hours and then letting them out and watching them trying to walk normal...

The early Latvians made everything from wood, metal must have been a very scarce commodity, or very expensive and very little is made of metal. They were very resourceful though, I was amazed, even their vices were made of wood, including the screw bit... I know, I was amazed too!!!


The wooden vice and some wooden tools


Wooden shovels and tools

The countryside is beautiful, a really lovely place. A lot of locals do not speak English, but everyone is very friendly.


The country is covered with pine forests, very pretty....

Oh and we saw another castle, very like a min Versailles, but not all restored yet. Very nice, but no photos allowed, so I took some of their bill board.


The main Hall. Very impressive

I am in the lobby of our hotel, it is 8:05, we don't leave until 9am, so a bit of time to kill. We are off to Estonia today, I hope it is as nice as Latvia.

Cheers for now
Lones