And Latvia makes fourteen

 The Baltic countries are not very big, especially in the north to south direction. We are of course headed roughly southwards back to Spain and so we were soon to cross the border and add our fourteenth country of the trip to our ever growing list. We were now in Latvia.



The country side in Latvia is a lot like Scotland with lots of farm land but one very noticeable thing is that most of the farms have storks nests often on purpose built posts. In the second picture I think a purpose built addition is there to make the telegraph pole a suitable site for them.


Our first planned stop was in Valmiera which we had seen on a youtube video and it looked reasonably interesting. Unfortunately, although everyone else seems to be enjoying heatwave conditions we are still experiencing very unpredictable weather. When we arrived we found our parking spot. We have an app that points you to camp sites but it also shows you car parks that are paid or free and where you can spend the night if you want. Obviously most of the other motohomers use the app too because there is almost always someone else there. We arrived a huge free car park and since there were no other campers there we picked our spot. Within 15 minutes four other motorhomes had joined us! Parked up, bite of lunch ready to explore the area.

Then it started. The tell tale pitter patter of the rain on the roof of the mobile home (MH). Within a couple of minutes we were in a thunder and lightning storm and were glad not to have set off a few minutes earlier because we never saw it coming. However, as quickly as it had arrived, it departed and the drying process began. After a short while we felt confident enough to set off.

The car park was right next to a big park through which we had to walk to reach the main town which spans a big river. We thought we'd do one side of the river on one day and the other side before heading onwards next day. In the park we found a rather unusually shaped monument thing which turned out to be the war memorial to Latvian soldiers who perished in the various wars that this country has been involved in.

War memorial

Next thing we came across was St Simon's Church which is pretty old as it happens. here are some facts and figures.

Built: Around 1283 in a Romanesque–Early Gothic style; largely retains its medieval form. Two stone cannonballs embedded in the northern wall—reminders of Livonian War bombardment; a fragment of a pillory chain at the entrance (we never noticed these). A Friedrich Ladegast pipe organ (1886) renowned across Europe and considered one of Latvia’s finest (we never heard this!).

St Simon's Church

A bit further on we found the picture house. My schoolboy German came into its own when I saw the word Kino. Despite its rather drab exterior it is obviously still in use judging by the posters outside.
The picture house

Another church this time the Orthodox Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh in Valmiera. It has a rather interesting mix of bricks and stones. Rather appealing to my eye. It was Built: Between 1874 and 1877, consecrated on May 16, 1879 and designed by Jānis Frīdrihs Baumanis (1834–1891), Latvia’s first academically trained architect.

Orthodox Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh in Valmiera

We walked down by the river and back to our MH for my belly was telling me it was dinner time. After dinner we were just settling down to enjoy the climax of the Scottish Open golf when some idiot boy racers came into the carpark doing ridiculous wheelspin turns throwing stones crashing into the side of the MH. Although there was no apparent damage we decided that this carpark was likely going to be the scene of more racing later in the evening and felt that we would be a bit uncomfortable sleeping there waiting for it all to kick off. So we packed up and moved to a quieter location beside a peaceful lake, meaning that we never got to see the other side of the river. This spot has a lovely swimming area and people were still in there at 9pm. I doubt that we will be partaking in some wild swimming though.

Today the plan is to visit Riga. Weather looks promising so fingers crossed. Take care.
D, S and MJ






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Arjuzanx and other places and more wetness!!!

Image
Ok apologies for the radio silence for a few days. Some of us have to work you know. Let's get you caught up without any further ado. I promised you pictures of Arjuzanx and I am going to have to modify that slightly to say picture, singular. I only took one of the war memorial. It is not the best picture of what I thought was one of the nicest war memorial's I have seen. The guy on the top was all painted beautifully and it was really striking. We stayed a couple of nights in Arjuzanx but the weather was awful. I was working and Sheila was confined to book reading and cooking. I must say the food on this trip has been pretty awesome. We often think let's eat out and so we go to the local restaurant. We look at the menu and the prices and think, sod it, we're not paying that. Sheila makes something ten times better for a tenth of the price. It is a no brainer really. Pork teryaki (or however you spell it) tonight. Might just open a bottle of my favourite 2 euro a bottle...
Read more

The leaning tower of .....

Image
Zaragoza of course, the leaning tower of Zaragoza. I have to confess that in the photos it does not look like it is leaning that much but it is enough to notice. This image is taken from the end of the magnificent square, well rectangle really outside of the big fancy church place. There is a fairly modern water feature in the front and then the tower in the back OK it's time to admit it, you thought that the leaning tower was the one on the extreme left. No. That apparent lean of that one is an optical illusion caused by the angle of the picture. The actual leaning tower is the one in distance in the middle of the picture. It is called the  Church of San Juan de los Panetes  How Much Does It Lean? It's not dramatic, but definitely visible — locals joke that the tower is "slightly tipsy" 🍷. Fun Fact There’s a popular myth in Zaragoza that the tower leans because the monks who built it drank too much wine while laying the foundations. 😄 Remember I mentioned a big fan...
Read more

Fenny Compton or bust

Image
  After a few days of "radio silence" we are back. I had a very busy few days of work there and we were camped by the side of a fishing lake although there was not much actual fishing going on and we never saw any fish getting caught so maybe we should just call it a lake. Oh and on that front I guess it was really pretty small so maybe a pond would be better so all in all I think Seighford Fishing Lakes might be better to be called Seighford Ponds. Mind you it did have quite a selection of birds including a fine flock of Canada Geese. A tad noisy but otherwise they were good neighbours. It was, as previously indicated, a busy work spell and so we did not manage to do that much except work but it was notable that our journey from Banbury to Stafford took us (deliberately) through Fenny Compton. Now here is a test for you, where do you know that name from. Fenny Compton. It is a tiny village in the middle of England with not much happening. I can hear you know thinking, I know...
Read more