After a lie-in on Saturday morning, we wandered through the streets of Riga. The park is spectacular to see in autumn and we couldn’t resist picking up handfuls of the bright leaves and flinging them in the air. Looking at the various churches, squares and alleys we climbed to the top of the tower in St. Peters Church (okay, it was an elevator, there was little climbing involved but the view was great all the same) and returned to ground to hear a choir practicing in the halls of the church. We passed mirrored trees, stone animals, cannons and having completed a few circuits of the city (the old town really isn’t that large) we headed to a late lunch in a place called Melna Bite. I can safely recommend this restaurant as being amazing, my slow cooked cow cheek on a bed of garlic mash was divine while the wild game dumplings with sour cream from my sister were just as good. Desert was a chamomile creme-brulee and was topped off with some small servings of their homemade lemonade (credit to the sister for the delicious foodie photos). Including the delicious bread at the start and two glasses of wine, everything was really reasonably priced, coming to about €35. I would go again in a heartbeat!

Following a quick afternoon nap we left to go to the concert (the one we got a sneak preview of when we visited the tower in St. Peters Church) which turned out to be pretty interesting. The theme was along the lines of music in fairy-tales and myths which groups of choirs and orchestras tried to capture through songs and pieces which were accompanied with a light display shadowing across the pillars in the large church chamber. Parts can’t really be described, but much of it was memorable, with dark elegant jungle themed chants against a backdrop of rustling trees with dangerous flames climbing along the vines, or melodic harmonies set to a story of a whale in the ocean. It was so different but interesting and I’m glad to have been there!

To top of the evening we wandered around trying to find a bar which was less touristic (i.e. avoiding the stag parties), spotted a few nice places in the cellars along Torna iela before stopping in Omas Briljants for potent cocktails where a DJ managed to nail every single song that he played.