Sophie's travels 2011-2012: 25/01/2012 Riga, Latvia

We started the day exploring the biggest market in Europe which was fairly amazing! It was a massive market with indoor and outdoor stalls with everything you could possibly need ranging from kitchen goods, clothes, electronics to loads of food produce. We walked along the iced over river which was awesome, it was snowing and very cold but we headed for St. Peter’s cathedral where we took the elevator to the top of the spire for panoramic views out over the old town and city – spectacular! We made it back down in time to join another free walking tour which took us through a bit of the old town, explained some of the history about the war time and invasion before taking us over to the great market which we wandered through again and then over to the black market which we were told not to take photos in because a lot of the stuff was stolen… We walked through ‘little Moscow’ and the art district, through a little church that had been rebuilt because it was burnt down during the war (I made the most of the heating and defrosted my toes while we were there), past ‘Stalin’s wedding cake’ church which was awesome and then on to the posh area called the ‘Barrack’ district. We admired lots of different styles of architecture then finished the tour outside the Russian Orthodox Church which was really spectacular. From there we walked back to the hostel, past the peace statue and over the frozen river and past the little markets again (where we stopped and made a few purchases). We had a very late lunch in the hostel and thawed out for a while before venturing out again to find some post cards then to Club Ala, a folk club underground which had a great atmosphere and amazing food! It cleared into a sunny day in the afternoon which made the temperature drop even more (around -10 degrees).