Nothing says Amsterdam like the ubiquitous bike, ok, well maybe marijuana, canals, fries with mayo also say it as well, but you know what I mean. The bike is the mainstay of the Dutch, they ride it through rain, sleet, snow, and all the weather in between. Seeing bridges and buildings covered in bikes is [...]
Tag Archives: around the world travel
Funny Latvia Roadsigns
Nice collection of road signs and other amusing signs encountered while traveling through the Latvia. For those of you that are confused, Latvia is South of Estonia and North Lithuania. Is your 9th grade geography coming back to you? Thought I would only do one post for the entire Baltic region but the signs vary [...]
Riley, Party of 1 (Baltics)
There are hundreds of benefits to traveling solo: paying more for accommodation, getting lost, eating alone, having to suffer soley through the gaps in language and communication. But my most favorite is of course, taking the ubiquitios picture of myself in some town. Here is my Latvia/Lithuania travel photo essay of the modern single traveler.
Hill of Crossess (Siauliu)
[ad#adsense:horiz/no outline] A little off the beaten trail is a a little hill, that has more than a little amount of religious significance for Lithuanians. It started in 1831 when large wooden crosses began appearing, each year those crosses multiplied until the 1950′s there were over a couple hundred. Well the Soviets idea of religion [...]
Random Latvia
[ad# Adsense:vert/no outline] There are some cardinal rules in Latvia. 1. Beautiful people are everywhere. 6 foot giant Amazon women in skin tight jeans roam Riga. 2. High heels are obligatory wherever you go whatever you do. 3. Magenta is the hair color of choice for women over 50. 4. The new new hairstyle is [...]
Jelgava: City of Color
Jelgava (pr: yel gava) sits in Southern Latvia about 50 kilometers from the Lithuaninan border. While spending more than 1 night here is unnecessary, the city itself is small and especially colorful, housing some very well maintained kaleidoscopic churches and palaces. While I don’t know their names, they were all about 15 minute walk from bus terminal [...]
Karosta Military Prison
Karosta Prison sits in the North end of Liepaja, Latvia. When the hammer & sickle flag flew over Latvia, Karosta was a military compound housing over 40,000 military personnel. The prison it’s self was once a hospital and was used for mainly for Russian solders. Today it sits in the middle of the empty compound [...]
Liepaja: The Loneliest City
Liepaja (pr: Lea Paya), Latvia has 2 sides. One is a small seaside town of 80,000 with waterfront park and the other is a lonely, gritty city with depressing wooden apartment houses and sullen decaying red brick ones. The city you find almost certainly depends on the state of the weather because Liepaja can go [...]
Art Nouveau in Riga?
A little known fact is that Riga is dripping in early 20th Art Nouveau architecture. You wouldn’t know to look at her, but there are hundreds of little hidden gems all over the city. Some completely restored (There is a section of town where you can see about 15 different examples, all in pretty good [...]
Why isn’t Riga the new Prague?
Riga Riga, you are so beautiful. There are no if’s and’s or but’s about it. Riga rivals any major European city in architecture, nightlife, cuisine, and history, so where are all the tourists? Anyone who has ever been to Prague, rain or shine, warm or cold, knows the sheer amount of warm bodies the city [...]
