Day 33 - Time-travel, Black Heads (No, not acne), and Changing Plans

As now seems to be my ‘thing’, I will begin with last night. My plan was for a chilled evening - a simple dinner and an early night. I achieved the simple dinner part, but then got very involved in the Posh v Barnsley game (a frustrating 1-0 win for Barnsley, cementing Posh to the bottom of the table) and finishing my book. By the time both of these things had happened, I realised that it was past midnight and I had not yet done Duolingo. Sure, there is a streak freeze, but I have a legit 3 year streak on Duo, and I was not down with losing it by a few minutes. So I time-traveled! Read, I turned off location settings on my phone, told my phone I was in the UK, and ta da - it wasn’t even 11pm yet. Magic. Streak saved.

It is perhaps therefore unsurprising that I didn’t wake up very early. I had a quick breakfast, and did make it to my first stop of the day at a respectable hour. This first stop was ‘The House of the Black Heads’. A bit of context - the Black Heads, named for their patron St Maurice, who I believe was the first black Christian saint, were essentially a guild of merchants (I do not believe that there is any link at all to acne!). These merchants were unmarried, of German descent, and based in Livonia (what is now Estonia and Latvia). The House of the Black Heads was essentially their clubhouse in Riga.

The building was entirely rebuilt in the past 30 years after it was pretty much destroyed in WWII and then really destroyed by the Soviets. The cellar is a museum of the history of the Black Heads, the first floor showcases the silver collection, and the second floor seems to just be very nice rooms. I enjoyed the audio tour a lot :)

My next stop was at a lovely cafe called Crumble Cakes. I had seen this recommended online and my pear and caramel crumble cake definitely did not disappoint. Nom. I also liked that it was pretty much next door to a lovely stationery shop!

It was then onto Riga Central Market, which is apparently Europe’s largest market. Given that it is both indoors and outdoors, with the indoor bit alone spanning five huge hangars, I can believe it. It was certainly a little bit bigger than Oundle’s market; which I assume is the second largest in Europe…. There was SO MUCH food! Seriously, one hangar was just for meat. It was all a bit crazy.

In the late afternoon, I stopped off for some food and to do a bit of trip planning, knowing that I planned to go to the concert in the evening. It was here that I discovered a bit of a problem - both my trains to Vilnius (tomorrow) and Warsaw (Sunday) required seat reservations, but both were sold out. Hmmm. I did a bit of research though and found out that there are very reasonable buses (£15-£20) that take about the same time as the train. Whilst it will ruin my pretty Interrail map, I have now booked onto two buses, so hope to stick to my original plan.

Admin done, I set off for the cathedral for the organ concert. On my way, my attention was taken by an incredible cellist playing in the Old Town Square - she was playing modern classics (yes, I do count ‘Let it Go’ from Frozen as a modern classic, and will die on that hill!), and it was oddly moving.

I got to the cathedral in plenty of time and reckon there were a few hundred people there to listen to Janis Pelmanis play various organ pieces including works of Bach and then some modern Latvian composers. Whilst it is not really my kind of music, and was not as powerful as I thought it might be, it was still quite an experience. I enjoyed that there were screens up, so you could really see him playing, as I think that the nature of organists being in the gods behind you can make it seem a bit like magic otherwise!

I am now sat in a nice little restaurant about to have a wood-fired pizza for dinner. Yes, I know I am not being very ambitious, but I don’t care!

Hopefully my next update will be coming to you from Vilnius after my first long-ish distance bus…… 🚍