Riga: day 2

Coffee and croissant

Up and out by 10.00 and off to the Jewish Cultural Centre to see the museum.  The Centre is a large and dusty and mainly empty building and the museum on the second floor is housed in three rooms and is full of photographs of Latvian Jews going back to 1600.  The captions are in Latvian, Hebrew and English but nothing is really explained.  You come away knowing that there was a flourishing intellectual and artistic contribution by Jews to life in Latvia and the Nazis and the Russians largely wiped it out.  It's depressing but not a revelation.  We have decided not to visit anymore sites of Jewish history in Latvia.  The story won't get any better.   But there is always food and drink.  First coffee stop of the day.

Next stop was the Art Nouveau museum which consisted of a beautiful apartment that had belonged to a Latvian architect full of authentic furniture and artefacts, though not original to the house.   There were women in period costumes in some of the rooms and someone playing the piano and it was beautiful and restful. 

Staircase outside the
 entrance to the museum

Art Nouveau interior

Art Nouveau interior

Lovely carpet

Elegance! 

Albert Street

Albert Street

Peter spotted an interesting looking cafe which turned out to be Russian.  We sat inside and looked at the menu and were ignored by a stony faced young woman behind the counter.  Eventually she came over and when we asked her advice about the menu she loosened up and was charming.   We have decided that Latvians don't smile very readily or seem welcoming.  (That goes for buildings and museums...they are forbidding from the outside and the heavy doors are always shut.)

The lunch was delicious.   I had herring, beetroot, carrot and potato layers with quails eggs and Peter had buckwheat risotto with wild mushrooms and salad. 

Lunch

His 

Mine

 After lunch we wandered across to the old town and walked and walked.   We took in a number of interesting buildings including a lavishly decorated Russian Orthodox Church.

Cobbled streets

Church

We were impressed by this statue of an author and the flower bed in front of him.

After our long walk we sat down for a glass of lemon tea before hoofing it back to the apartment for a rest before the next meal.

Fantastic Mr Liss