Latvians - Mad as cut snakes

Further to yesterdays exciting report, today went mostly as planned. An easy drive (Joy drove, I napped),  arrived at the Latvian Border about 2.30 pm after spending the last few coins of our "Lits" at a petrol station a few km south of the border. By the way, Latvia now uses the Euro and "Lats" have gone since Feb 2014.

Latvian (and in general Baltic) countryside is pretty. It is summer now and the fields are chock full of nearly ripe wheat, barley,  corn,  sunflowers, wildflowers and, the occasional windmill.

Arrived Riga mid to late afternoon and found a park and a nice record shop/cafe with free Wi Fi and a nice lady helping. This enabled us to find a place to stay and despite a few setbacks, we found a place OK.

There are several festivals on in Riga tonight, including a Jazz festival and some sort of Hip-hoppy crap concert coming from the park opposite the hotel. Some mindless MC and crowd must just enjoying listening to him rabble on about any old shit. There is virtually no music, the band will play 8-12 bars of some popular song by say James Brown, Cyprus Hill or Michael Jackson, each will last about 1 min and then the bloody MC will go on yapping for another 10-15 mins before another little excerpt will get played. I hope it was free as anyone who payed for it is as "Mad as cut snake"

We have a rooftop garden (where the noise was worse) but managed to get some snaps of local skyline, views from the rooftop before camera  battery died, There were rabbits as well, but no photos of them as yet.

We have decided to stay in Riga for two nights, giving one clear full day to explore tomorrow. It is a large city with an "old city", all cobblestone streets, and a "new city" which looks mostly 17-18th century.

Lots of nice parks and gardens, just a pity the noise from some is so disagreeable tonight.

LB

 Rural Latvia

 A big TV tower (we think) on the River in Latvia

 The Park from whence came the offending noise and yapper.

 Graffiti on near by wall

Sunlight on near buildings