Shots from Latvia

HI all

I have just returned from a few days in Riga, the capital of Latvia. Here are a few shots ...

The first is called (believe it or not!) the House of the Blackheads. It was a medieval guild house for unmarried merchants.

Riga is known for it's art nouveau architecture, mostly designed by Eisenstein (the father of the Eisenstein who made Battleship Potempkin, one of the classics of cinema). Two examples of that.

The fourth is inside the market. The market is housed inside five giant zeppellin sheds built by the Germans during the war.

The final one is just me being arty-farty with the tram tracks :D

Cheers
Mike

Great shots, and I especially like the last, arty-farty one! :)

I like them all but especially the market. Gives me a hint of life there.
The first thing I notice is that the ailes are wide and there are no tall shelves towering over the shoppers. Then I notice they are dressed the same as regular Americans.
There's something else......what is it?.....ah! No shopping carts.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frog

I like them all but especially the market. Gives me a hint of life there.
The first thing I notice is that the ailes are wide and there are no tall shelves towering over the shoppers. Then I notice they are dressed the same as regular Americans.
There's something else......what is it?.....ah! No shopping carts.

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Are you taking "market" for "supermarket"? To me a market is a place with individual standas selling one type of product - fish, vegetables, meat - who you pay directly. In a supermarket you charge around with a caddy grabbing things off shelves then wait at a long queue to pay at the exit.

Yes I'm afraid that everywhere you go people dress pretty much the same. But they don't look the same and they don't act the same. We get a lot of tourists in Paris and I find I can sometimes guess people's nationality just from how they are.

Any more pictures? I'm not up on the eastern block at all. Still trying to get round western Europe.

Franglais is right .. it is a market, not a supermarket. They claim it to be the largest in Europe with some 1200 stalls. I'm not sure of that - the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul is bigger, but the Latvian one may be the biggest selling food, household goods, clothes, etc. I bought a nice vest (of the photo/fishing type) for 7 Lats (about $15).

Here are a few more pics. In the first one you can see the zeppellin sheds where the market is housed. This and the second pic were taken from the church tower you can see in the first picture at the beginning of the thread.

The third pic here is the changing of the guard at the Freedom Monument, which was built in 1991 when Latvia gained its independence.

Cheers
Mike

Wow.... As always it is great to see other parts of the world. Your pictures are great, I really love the architecture, I could spend days just looking at some of those buildings. The size of the zeppellin sheds are amazing.

Thanks for posting them...

James