Vacation Trip 2006 June/July 2006 Photos from Riga, Latvia Photos in Album: 170

This is the House of The Blackheads



The Stock Exchange



Views from the Rooftop Restaurant at the Hotel



Walking around by the hotel



The Swedish Gate



The Powder Tower



More photos around as well as in the Dom Cathedral



One of the cafes on dom square I had many good meals at, followed by many good vodkas :-)



More photos around Dom Square



This is the lesser guild house



This is the famous House of The Cat. I love this story. It seems that back in the middle ages there was a merchant who wanted to join the guild, but was blackballed. In retribution he had two cats placed on the roof of his building, with the "south end of a north-bound cat" pointed directly at the guilds. The message was clear, and the guilds actually sued him in court and forced him to turn the cats rear-ends around so that they did not face the guild houses. He was ultimately allowed to join the guilds, and everyone was happy. What a great story!



Here you see the Museum of Occupation - referring back to the Soviet period



Here are photos around Riflemans Square. These statues are controversial today because of the role the Riflemen played both during the Bolshevic revolution and afterwards.



Here at Rifleman's Square tour groups meet offering a variety of tours of Riga.



One of my plans was to go to this gunrange in Riga where I had read you could fire various automatic weapons, including AK's. Even my cab driver had a hard time finding the place, and when we pulled up the entrance was surrounded by various police vehicles. You see this gun range is made inside an old Soviet bunker. I went ahead and got out of the cab and went down into the bunker. I was able to take these couple of photos before I was told not to do so, and so here they are. When I got inside down below, the police were all lined up in groups - apparently they use this bunker as their shooting range for practice as well.



Photos of the three brothers

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