City Sights: Riga Old Town
First, a few observations about Riga:
1) It’s a pretty small city: around 600,000 people. For comparison, the City of Denver has about 735,500 people.
That might seem like Riga isn't that small of a city, but when you realize it is the biggest city in the Baltics—Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia—suddenly, it feels even smaller.
2) I feel really short here. Women here all seem really tall. And blonde. And fit. It's not like I'm all that short at 5'8” or unfit, but walking down the street, I feel quite short and a bit frumpy.
3) Riga has over 300 art nouveau buildings making every walk we take a scenic adventure.
4) Summer days are loooooooong. When we got here at the end of July, dawn was at 4:14am, dusk at 10:44pm. Have you ever tried to go to bed the sun is still shining in the window? A foray to Ikea for blackout curtains fixed that easily enough though.
5) Last but not least, even though the days are looooong, the summer is very short! By the third week of August, it's definitely apple-picking, pumpkin spice, sweater kinda weather! This is a bit tough when you don’t actually have fall-type clothes in your wardrobe. So, if it looks like I'm pretty much wearing the same hoodie in every picture, it's because I am. I could go buy a sweater or two for the last few weeks here, but, well, to be honest, it feels like a lot of work for a sweater I'll hopefully not need at our next destination!
We picked the Central Neighborhood for our Airbnb here, about a 10-15 minute walk to scenic Vecrīga, aka Old Town. Old Town Riga, is mostly pedestrian-only and the streets are lined with cobblestone. It's full of gorgeous (reconstructed, thanks Hitler) Medieval-era buildings and churches. In addition to fantastic architecture, the city is full of parks with grass to sit in and read or people watch under huge trees. Plenty of ice cream stands in case you forgot dessert for your picnic too!
I wasn't expecting such a small city. I wasn't expecting such a clean city either. I've seen almost no trash or debris on the sidewalks and streets. The parks are smoke-free zones which is nice since there seems to be a lot of smokers!
There isn't nearly as much street art as other cities we've visited, but the art nouveau buildings were their own street art and made our walks feel a bit like we were on a movie set.
