Hello Thursday. Still with you but you seem to have gone quiet of late. Hope all is well. Maybe you have so much to report it is taking a while to marshal your thoughts. Where are you?

Hi Gertie. Just reached Plovdiv. Train ride Nis to Sofia not conducive to writing. Then joined tour, ditto. Last night we stayed in Rila monastery, no wifi. Have loads of emails and need to get journal up to date.

Why Plovdiv and where next?

See http://tours.ricksteves.com/tours11/...code/BUL11/222

Looks great!

wow - your itinerary really brings back memories from 1978-81: the golden domes of Nevski, Rila monastery, old town Plovdiv, the Kazanluk tomb, Nesebar, Veliko Turnovo! But things were a lot grayer then: no one was allowed to worship in the cathedral, very few folkloric dancers, the Fulbright professor living in Veliko Turnovo had to carry water up to his 4th floor flat. Will be interested to hear your impressions of modern day Bulgaria!

<b>Sept 5-9 - Riga: Art Nouveau</b>

Riga surprised me - much bigger and more crowded than I expected. But being bigger turned out to be a good thing, because Riga has enough space for its multiple personalties to flourish. 

Cheap flights bring in the drinkers and partiers, who populate the old town's cafes and pubs in the center. Oddly, it was busiest on Monday afternoon, and things quieted down considerably as the week progressed. I don't know whether Monday was the end of some European long weekends, or whether the wetter weather kept people indoors. Aside from one expensive drink at an outdoor cafe on one of the main squares, and a good meal at the Hotel Neiburg (so-so mushroom soup but delicious salmon salad with avocado and fennel) I visited the old town only to take pictures and pick up some information at the T.I.

I had come to visit a newer part of Riga, home to the largest collection of Art Nouveau buildings anywhere, which gave me a good excuse to stay in the Hotel Edvards, away from the crowds. Where the old town walls once stood, a river and a necklace of pretty parks now separate the old town from the other Rigas. My first afternoon I took advantage of the sunshine to visit the Art Nouveau buildings scattered around the old town. The next morning I had arranged with skibumette to get together for coffee, and on the way I took a look at the lovely Art Nouveau museum at Alberta 12 (http://www.jugendstils.riga.lv/eng/muzejs - make sure you look UP the staircase outside the apartment that is now the museum) and picked up some brochures. I enjoyed both our talk, and the lovely Art Cafe Sienna skibumette had chosen, right opposite the museum.

Reading the brochures I made a discovery. Turns out there are three kinds of Art Nouveau, at least in this part of the world: Eclectic, Perpendicular (or Vertical) and Romantic/Nationalist, which explains the confusion I had felt in Helsinki, where there was very little Eclectic  Art Nouveau. Unfortunately, I very much prefer Eclectic, which is the style I really think of as Art Nouveau. While I saw plenty of Eclectic in Riga, many of the buildings in the brochures belonged to the other styles.

I took quite a lot of photos, but unfortunately I have yet to figure out how to persuade the iPad app for smugmug to let me upload more than one at a time, so those of you wanting photos will have to manage with the few I've posted to my blog. (See the first post for the link.)

Your pictures of Riga on your website are very good.

Thanks, gertie!

<b>Sept 5-9 - The Other Rigas</b>

Although my primary interest in Riga was Art Nouveau, I explored other parts of the city as well. I particularly liked the parks that lay between my hotel and the old town. My first afternoon I found the Orthodox cathedral, rather more impressive inside than those I had visited in Helsinki and Tallinn, and the iconic statue at the entrance to the old town. I have to confess that my favorite place around the parks, however, was the Apsara tea house. Not only did it boast a bewildering array of teas (including two varieties of my favorite white tea), after you climbed the spiral staircase to the top floor and took your shoes off, you could relax on cushions on the floor and watch the passing parade in comfort.

One day I took a bus north through the suburbs to visit the Open Air museum. Now I've visited open air museums in Wales and in the Netherlands and found them fascinating, and easily worth several hours. Unfortunately, I can't put Riga's in the same class. There are, after all, only so many wooden storage buildings, and even houses, you can look at without them all looking the same. And unlike the wooden houses I had seen in Russia, these were very plain - it was only houses from the far eastern reaches of Latvia that showed any decoration at all.

One afternoon I trekked over to the main market, held in four former zeppelin hangers. It was a very clean and orderly market, and I didn't take pictures. The next afternoon I walked the other way along the waterfront (mostly occupied by a very busy road), and admired the suspension bridge. Just inland, I found a new gold statue with an inscription in Latvian and Russian. I enlisted the help of a young woman nearby, who was befriending a stray cat, and she told me that the statue was very new - she hadn't seen it before - and was a new concept, as it was of an "ordinary" citizen of Riga.

I thought perhaps the wooden buildings in the Russian section of town might be more interesting, and took a bus off to the other side of the river. But no - those buildings were in serious need of TLC, and didn't look like they had boasted much decoration when new. I should have visited the "garden" suburb instead. I grew up in Letchworth, in England, known as the First Garden City, and had been intrigued to read that this part of Riga made the same claim (wikipedia backs Letchworth). I'll check it out next time, as Riga made my revisit list.

I found two good wine bars quite close to the Hotel Edvards. One, the more expensive D'Vine, was attached to the Radisson, and served me a nicely dry sherry and a good Chilean Viognier alongside acceptable bean soup and salmon with asparagus. The Tinto, a block further away, and much less posh, had a larger wine selection, although its tapas were minute. The Serrano ham, what there was of it, was good, but the wild boar hamburger and fries were just OK. The Chilean Malbec, however, was excellent, and the Cointreau cheap. I'd recommend both places, although not the Armenia, which I tried the first night.

Hi thursday! So glad to get your Riga report at last! I'm sorry there wasn't time to give you Ski's walking tour of Old Town, my old stomping ground...before the days of the British bachelor party excursions. We lived in Jacob's Barracks across from the old city walls, near the Swedish Gate -- but our house is now a youth hostel!

I'll have to do some research on the new golden statue -- you've piqued my interest! We noticed that the wooden buildings along the main road on the "Pardaugava" side of the river (across from Old Town) have been restored, but others are still waiting their turn. There was a movement about the time we left (late 2004) to restore all these buildings, but hard economic times meant that any restorations were individual, not a city-financed effort.

Glad to hear you'l return some day to check out Mezaparks!

I'm feeling very technically challenged here, since gertie managed to find your photos! I have looked and looked and do NOT see the link to your blog! HELP!!!

Sorry skibumette, it was in the Asia board thread....

Hi thursdaysd, I'm still reading this too! Fascinating report on a part of Europe I've never been, and I'm enjoying the photos on your blog!

Thanks gertie! The golden statue is new to me - definitely not the almost "socialist realism" style you see in many of the monuments. I'll ask some friends there more about it...

I'm enjoying reading your report and looking forward to the next chapter.

The Bulgaria tour just finished - I'm typing in the hotel lobby so as not to disturb a room mate with an early flight. I take a bus to Skopje tomorrow morning, and hope to have more time for writing now the tour is over. My journal is up to date, but I've had no time to do more.

we'll wait until you gave time :-)

have time, that is...

Just tuned you in and am following with interest. Did you get to the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia? Harrowing, informative and extremely well done. What are your impressions of the people of Skopje? You've hooked me in, keep it up.