Turaida Castle

Turaida Castle is a cheap train ride away to Sigulda and a short (and small) bus ride to Turaida Museum Reserve. The castle was started in 1214 and went through various changes until it's decline in the 17th century. It wasn't rebuilt after it had become private property and a major fire in 1776 destroyed a lot of it. It became a protected object in 1924 and they've rebuilt some of the structures as they turned it into a museum. It now has some interesting exhibits in many of the buildings. The main tower is well worth the climb to get a view of the surrounding land like the picture above.

Celebrating Līgo and Jāņi at Dzegužkalns Park

We had a wonderful night celebrating a traditional Līgo and Jāņi at Dzegužkalns Park. This picture is as dark as it gets about half an hour after midnight. That glow on the horizon is the twilight of a sun that doesn't go to bed since we don't achieve full night this time of year. What do you do to celebrate the shortest night in a place like Latvia? You sing, dance, eat, and light stuff on fire. If you see one thing in this post then look for the video of the flaming wheel heading towards the bonfire below.

Victory Memorial and More Riga Parks

Riga is great for green spaces and parks. We have the most amazing park by Vecrīga (Old Riga or Old Town) along the canal circling Riga where the city walls used to be. There's lots of other city parks dotting around the map to check out so this is about a few of those near the Victory Memorial.

Austin Museums

We visited two good museums in Austin. One was the Blanton Museum at the University of Texas which had a good amount of contemporary art which I liked and a dash of some other stuff. The pic above and below is a fountain on the vast university grounds and the somewhat infamous UT Tower. Google for UT Tower shooting if you don't know why.

The other museum was the Umlauf Sculpture Garden & Museum. We caught it an hour before closing and it was just enough time to see it all. If it wasn't so hot and muggy then I would have liked to spend some more time there because it's a great garden setting for the sculptures. It'd be a nice relaxing place to hang out in a more favorable temperature. I guess I need to acclimate again to the Texas heat.

Austin Texas

I've been a Texan since I was 12 but I finally visited the Texas Capitol Building during an R&R from Latvia. Austin has a slogan of "Keep Austin Weird" but it really isn't any weirder than any other city I've seen. We looked for the weird and didn't find very much of it except on souvenirs in the shops. I did see one red hat for sale saying "Make Austin Weird Again" which would be more appropriate now. Here's some pics around town and the Capitol.

Meža Kapi - Forest Cemetery

We visited the forest cemetery in Riga on this May 1st holiday. It looks like a great place to rest after you die. It's a grand setting for a cemetery with each grave serving as its own little garden tended to by their loved ones. There's a big military memorial cemetery which was grand in a different way with the Mother Latvia monument and eternal flame.

Stockholm Viking Museum

This is a quick post about the Viking Museum in Stockholm which wasn't there when I lived there. We're in Riga now so we took the Tallink overnight ferry there and back again for the long Easter weekend. It's a cheap way to travel to Stockholm and kind of fun with the shows, bars, buffets, and rooms like the bigger cruise ships. It wasn't what I though of when I first heard about riding on a ferry. First, here's a few pics from the trip to Stockholm.