DragonOfTheSeas

Then I returned to the ship.Here is yesterday’s Dailey Planner. Someone asked for me to post a pic of the Whistle and the Pig:The above is the promenade seating and the one below shows the interior. We sat on the promenade for a while and listened to Beatriz on the classic guitar and had a drink. she was very good and it was very relaxing.

Then I went to Saint Peter’s Church. It is not on the square. But you can’t miss it with its tall steeple. There’s a three euro admission to the church and then another small fee to go up in the tower. But I don’t do steps. Ha ha ha. I’ve been told that it’s one of the best views of the city. pictures are allowed in this church. I asked at the ticket booth before I took any pictures.😇 while it is very nice inside this is church is nowhere near as impressive as the cathedral.

First I enjoyed walking around the streets of old town In Riga. It’s actually very compact. this was along the main street as I entered. The next two are building surrounding the Town Square. This is the house of the Black Heads. It was the historical home of a guild of young tradesmen who had migrated to this area. There is a house of blackheads in Tallin, Estonia, also. i’d love to have gone back into the city in the evening to take pictures of this in the dark. I have seen pictures with all the lights around the exterior of the building. It’s pretty impressive. But it doesn’t get fully dark around here until after 10 o’clock and the last bus comes back from the city at 11. That’s just too close of a call for me.

There are two city employees that man The shuttle bus at the pier and two next to the Riga Castle where you get off. I mentioned my issue with the hop on hop off while I was waiting to reboard the shuttle to the ship. Both women told me that when people ask them about two hop on hop off bus companies that operate in the city they discourage them from taking it. Of course I didn’t know that before I bought the ticket. (€25 for two days ) Here is their information.

Then my transit troubles started. You see the brick building I forgot to label above. These used to be warehouses for the market but now there hipster restaurants and other businesses. It was also my view for about an hour and 20 minutes as I waited for the next hop on hop off bus to arrive. I knew I was in the correct place because there’s only really one place they can drop you off. And after about 20 minutes a couple from Australia came and waited too. at that point I said forget this I’m wasting my whole day. So I looked on the map and saw that if I walked over to the next street and straight down that I would get to old town and there was another hop on hop off bus stop there. in fact it is their main spot. it was fine, there was a sidewalk the whole way. And then I entered the old town area. you could tell immediately because the streets were almost too narrow for cars and they were all cobblestones. It was so beautiful.

I was able to get back on the bus after only a 10 minute wait and rode a few stops to the central market. This is an amazing place. It is five old Zepplin hangers. Each one is now a building housing a different type of item for purchase. The first one had fish. Kind of stinky, so I didn’t stay there long. The second one was candy, cheese and nuts. I thought that was kind of an odd combination but it worked. There was another one that was devoted to clothing. I walked outside before the next one and in that interior space was an entire farmers market with fruit and vegetables and flowers they were doing a lively business. The last one had a lot of gifts and things. I stopped at a little kiosk that was selling lunch. I had cabbage soup and a strawberry parfait. My soup was €2.8 and my dessert was the same. It was delicious and I felt like I was eating like a local. It was a win-win.

The church is in the esplanade. Here is a good map and a list of distances I saw there. This is also the location of the art museum. it was a nice place to stop and rest for a few minutes.

If you were fit and good with walking Riga is an easy city to get around. Most of it is a walkable distance. If you want to go to something like the KGB building you’re going to need transportation it’s too far. DH and I are not able to do that anymore. We can walk but we can’t do distances. We have a table for two at dinner. But you know how close those tables are from one to the other. So we all discussed our day with the table on either side of us. Both of them walked the city. One woman had over 18,000 steps on her Fitbit. I had 7,000 on mine if that gives you a comparison. Ha ha both of them had walked the park along the river. That’s something that we might do today. They have canal boats available at two locations one is near the freedom monument and the other is near the train station.

Please do one I’d love to read your take on the same ports. You may not go back to the same places and I suspect you’re a lot better at the technological aspect of it. Last night it was glitchy. That’s why I didn’t post anything at the end of the day.

The ship was cleared yesterday at around 8:30 am. I left the ship at 9:30 and there was no line. They were using 2 types of shuttle buses. One was a large transit style and a smaller city bus. The city trams seemed to be a very popular mode of transportation for the residents. It didn’t seem like all that many cars. They came frequently. I was sorry I had not picked using the tram by the end of the day. When we got to the Rico Palace we got off the shuttle bus and we were meant by lots of people representing hop on hop off bus. They were offering a 48 hour ticket for $25 and so I took that. (don’t do it-I’ll share why later) I got on and rode for the first few stops. They have headphones and you dial number two for English and the commentary was fine it did the job. I got off at stop C and checked out the esplanade. It is a beautiful park in the center of Riga. In the location of the church of the nativity. It has five gold domes. It’s so beautiful. A word of caution here you have to wear modest dress if you’re gonna go to this church there is a sign at the door that talks about women can borrow skirts and head coverings at the gift shop. No shorts. I stopped and got head scarf because I wanted to be respectful. Then I broke the rules. Please don’t judge me I didn’t see the sign that said no photography. I’m not sure how I missed it. But since I took a picture I’m gonna post it so you can see how beautiful the inside of the church is. No one ever said anything to me. It’s just that I saw the sign as I was leaving the church. We passed the famous clock tower. This is really a funny location. When I was doing the research on Riga, if I had a general tourist site it never mentioned it as something to see. If I read comments by locals they always say you have to see the clock tower. Finally, I read the reason for that is that it is the location that if you’re going to meet someone in Riga you say I’ll meet you at the clock tower. I read comments like I got my first kiss at the clock tower. Or I met my husband there for the first time. it is owned by the candy company Laima. I guess it is the Hershey’s of Riga. This is the freedom monument. It’s Special place to the citizens of Riga and they often have events or ceremonies there.

I have had random times I could not get it to work. But, it is ok.

I’m back. The sun rising over the industrial area just does not have the same appeal as the sea. Hahaha.

Here you go

The port here is very industrial -not very nice looking. But now I’m headed to town.But now I’m headed to town.

We have crossed the Baltic Sea and have entered the Bay of Riga. Note the course the Captain had to take out of the archipelago. I took this picture at 10:05 PM from the Bay of Riga. Look how light it is. The sun had set but it stays light for more than a half an hour after the sunset.

We went to the show tonight starring Tony Tillman. He sings, dances and throws in a little comedy. Shows at eight and 10:15 PM in the Royal theater. He did Motown Jazz and rock ‘n’ roll. And after request even did a couple country music songs. it was a small but enthusiastic audience. here are the other options for tonight the ship showed the Spider-Man movie “No Way home” twice this afternoon in the main theater. There are a fair number of children on board and that was very popular.

I have no idea what you just said. HaHaHa I am supposed to be surf. Here is a capture of the screen at log in.

I did have trouble this morning. I gave up and waited a few minutes and it was better. [fingers crossed] It is still slow loading. I had better luck uploading from my phone in the public areas.

Someone on the other social media site we can not mention says there are 1356 passengers. [thank you Kim Fridstrom]. I can't tell you the capacity. But I know that is less than 50%.

There were lots of sailboats especially in the area closer into the city. There was a surprising amount of traffic on the waterway even out near the end. The outer most islands depend on larger ferries that carry cars because there are no bridges out here. There was another cruise ship that was following us out to the open sea.

As we left Stockholm yesterday we sailed through the Stockholm Archipelago. We left at 4:30 pm but did not get out to the open Baltic Sea until 9:15. It was so beautiful. There lots of big and small islands. There were houses on almost all of them. This island had tunnels through the rock. We did not notice roads on any of the islands. (Too small to need them) So this was likely the way they got from one side to the other. Most of the islands looked very rocky. Near the end of the archipelago the smaller islands look windswept.

We have gotten a window seat both days. 😃 The food choices in the cafe seem the same to me.

Look at these two pics of the windjammer cafe. I took these at 1pm yesterday. When have you ever seen it look like this? There were almost as many staff as guests. Since we had a big breakfast this morning we went there for lunch again today. There a few more occupied tables. But, not many. This was The “My Time Dining “ last night at 7:15. I asked the Next Cruise officer last night if he knew the number of guests. He said last cruise was 2500 but “thought” this one is 2000. If so they are hiding in their cabins.

Since I was up at an ungodly hour and I could take pictures with no one in them I went by the casino. Here are a few pictures of the casino. DH and I went by last night and I made a small donation he came out even.

Sunrise on day three. This might be the only day that I actually get a sunrise picture today sunrise was at 4:30 but we moved ahead one hour and it was really 5:30 ship time. it is another beautiful day 72° and perfect