Day 16 - Tour Day 5 – Thu 18 July 2019 – Vilnius to Riga, Latvia.

Sunrise:         5:05am                                              Sunset:          10:02pm

Another morning of waking up with the alarm. A couple of messages came in on the phone overnight but I managed to sleep through them.

After a filling breakfast, went back to my room to pick up the hand luggage and down to the bus for our trip to Riga.

Everyone on board and we were away on time at 8am. Another tour where there are no stragglers.  It’s very “grey” today. No sun shining through
.  

Once out of the city and in to the countryside it was also very misty, or perhaps foggy.

8:48 and travelling along a highway. Farming land and what appears to be wheat or barley crops. Fairly flat with just small rolling hills and treed areas also.

Morning stop was at a new petrol station/ eatery complex. I think there was more alcohol in the cafe, than anything else.  9:30 to 10:10.  I managed to buy myself a sandwich for lunch, although it had been heated.  By the time we have our lunch stop, it will have cooled down.  Back on the bus and away on time.

Anna has let us know that Catherine Palace is not being offered in Saint Petersburg,  because there are no tickets available at the time and day it was to be offered, so we are going to another Imperial Palace, Pavlovsk Palace instead.

We also had to advise her about the Kremlin Treasuers optional too. Similar story. Becoming more and more popular.

We arrived at the Hill of Crosses in Siauliai at 11:30 and were due to depart at 12:30. 

It was pretty much our lunch stop. The story behind the hill.

The Siauliai Hill of Crosses is a center of national pilgrimage just north of the small industrial city of Siauliai. Many thousands of crosses cover a small hill. Ranging from tiny crucifixes to enormous metal or wooden crosses, they represent the Lithuanian peoples spiritual devotion and also act memorials to the thousands who have died during the country’s many uprisings and oppressions. The tradition of placing crosses in this spot dates back to the founding of the city of Siauliai in 1236. Despite being levelled three times by the Soviets in the 1960s and 70s, local people and pilgrims replaced the hill and once again covered it with crosses, flouting the attempts by the Soviet army and the KGB to barricade the site.

We passed through  the former border of Lithuania & Latvia at around 1:15pm.  Anna says it will be about another hour before we get to the hotel.  She wasn’t too far off. We arrived at 2:30. Room 416.

Those of us doing the optional “Art Nouveau & Latvian Open Air Museum”, departed the hotel at 4:30pm.
First up was a stop on one of the smaller streets to look at some of the famous Art Nouveau buildings in Riga.  

Riga is one of the largest centres of Art Nouveau, with more than a third of the buildings of its Central District built in the style. The main street for Riga's Art Nouveau district is Elizabetes.

We then continued on out to the Open Air Museum and arrived there around 5.45pm. 

Old stables and tavern

After viewing a lutheran church

and a couple of the farm houses,

we then walked back to the restaurant for our dinner. Starter was a hearty soup. Main was salad vegetables and roast potatoes with a beef dish, pork ribs and sausage and dessert whipped cream on a berry jam over a delicious chocolately cake.  Dinner was over by 8pm and I think we were back at the hotel around 8:45pm.

Off to Tallin tomorrow.

Steps Walked                     3,720

Hotel: Radisson Blu Ridzene Hotel, Riga