Sarah Webb

Earlier in our trip we made a brief visit to the museum at the old KGB prison, the corner house. We had thought we would come back to go on a tour of the prison with a local guide.

Our guide, Aivars, walked our group through the procedure when a new prisoner arrived. In the arrival office belongings were taken away and filed into the drawers, given false illusion that one day they may be returned. They were then questioned in a tiny room, pressured to confess to crimes that the majority had not committed with the promise of their families safety. We were shown the cells, furnished with for beds but in busy times often housed up to 40 people. There were secret tunnels to neighbouring buildings so that KGB members could access the site without going through the front door.Read more

After a very early morning flight, with some rowdy stag dos, we arrived in Riga and caught the number 22 bus into the Old Town Centre and checked into our hotel, Ekes Konvents. A quick turnaround and we were back out on the streets.

We started by walking to the Blackheads House and then continued onto the Riga Cathedral. Compared to other Cathedrals around Europe we found the actual building rather plain, but the stain glass windows and the organ was very impressive. The cloisters at the back of the Cathedral had an exhibit on the history of the Cathedral, including a very impressive collection of cannons.

For lunch we snacked on some baked goods, a circular knotted bread roll, a chocolate almond cake and an apple strudel from a bakery called Rigenesis near the Cathedral.

After lunch we walked around to Riga Castle, a rather normal looking building down by the river, which was partially destroyed by fire in 2013, but has since been restored and is once again the home of the Latvian President. From there we wandered back up through the Old Town to the Freedom Monument and the City Canal. At the Freedom Monument Liberty towers over the city of Riga, with three gold stars representing the original cultural regions of Latvia: Kurzeme, Vidzeme and Latgale. The monument surprisingly was not destroyed during the Soviets era, but the area was considered off-limits and people placing flowers on its bases were persecuted. The City Canal runs through a park, of which there are quite a few in Riga, and was quite frozen. It had been unseasonably warm in Riga when we arrived, and the canal was really just starting to thaw. At this point we sort of realised just how small Riga Old Town was as we felt like we'd covered basically all of it in about 2 hours on foot.

Over the other side of the Canal we walked to Alberta iela, a street of houses constructed during the art deco period. The buildings on this street were decorated with goblins, Medusa heads, peacocks and everything else in between. Our walked continued, with a bottle shop pitstop for supplies, to the Corner House, home of the former KGB prison. We spent some time looking at the exhibition at the KGB house. As we were very unfamiliar with Latvian history it was a very eye-opening. One part of the exhibition was a video interview with people who had been imprisoned by the KGB at the Corner House. The lady that we heard told of her arrival at the prison being stripped and searched rather intimately, her experiences with interrogation and life in the cells. As we hadn't managed to catch one of the English tours for the day we planned to return again to further explore this creepy buildings past.

By this point it was time for a pre-dinner beverage, and the perfect location was found at Bierhaus, about 250m down the street from the Corner House. Here we drank beers brewed on site under the name Alkimikis. My favourite was a smoked porter with peppercorn. After a couple of beers we made the mad rush back to our hotel to via the Rimi to get ready for our dinner reservation.

Dinner was at Peter Gailis, which served Latvian cuisine. The decoration reflected the name of the restaurant, filled with hundreds of chicken statues! For starters we tried Latvian garlic bread, an instant favourite, and a selection of meats, washed down with a glass of Riga's Prestige Cuvee. Mains were chicken breast with mozzarella for Jonny and Latvian lamb fillet for me and a bottle of red wine.

After dinner we returned to our room, for a bottle of Georgian red wine and our first taste of the Latvian specialty, Black Balsam. Neither of us really knew what to expect from the Black Balsam, but were both suitably impressed, probably not signature drink good, but we were going to get the value out of our €4 bottle of the stuff. We then tucked ourselves into bed ready for our big tour day on Saturday.Read more