A Visit To Riga

The biggest surprise on our trip so far was our visit on Monday to Riga, the capital of Latvia. Four of us took a self-guided walking tour of the old town, full of a wide variety of architecture. Some of the oldest buildings are Gothic, and these churches are often near houses and shops created in the Renaissance or Baroque styles. All over one saw plentiful parks and colorful flowers. The final stop on our tour was the wonderful Alberta Street, to have a rich lunch at Alberta 13. Alberta Street is the highlight of the city's remarkable array of Art Nouveau buildings, and in that area, Riga is second to none. Mansions and apartment houses boast Medusa heads, scroll work, turrets, and many other fanciful architectural details. Many of these extraordinary buildings were designed by the Russian Eisenstein, father of the famed film director Sergei Eisenstein. - Dan