4 September 2012

Cafe life in Riga

I must admit i'm a bit predictable. Give me a good cafe and a good coffee and I can happily sit for hours.  In this respect (amongst many others), Riga does not disappoint. We'd discovered this last time but were delighted to extend our discovery to the cafes outside of old town.  Crazy fact: there's a whole world outside of old town Riga.  In fact, the streets off of Krisjana Barona Iela reminded me a lot of my old home on 83rd and 1st Avenue in Manhattan.  Hear me out. Where else are you going to find the Hare Krishna centre serving vegan buffet lunch for under £2, super cute and delicious basement restaurants that only make it for a few months, boutiques that sell knitted socks, cafes with multilingual baristas and graffiti that somehow looks etched into the original city plan? 

It was surreal in a good way.  

And I know a lot of people/other blogs/tour books mentioned the apparent 'coldness' of people in Latvia, but everyone we met was extremely accommodating.  Everyone  spoke English or was happy to gesticulate wildly along with us. And most people broke into rather large smiles when we practised our limited Latvian of paldies (thank you).  Maybe I've lived in big cities too long or maybe i'm losing that American desire to befriend random strangers on the street.  Not sure if I ever had that in the first place, really; I had overprotective parents.  

But I digress.  Here's a smattering of my favorite cafes, both old town and new, with a few other Riga delights thrown in.  
on Gertrudes Iela two streets down from the big church on the roundabout
amazing lattes, heart shaped sugar packets and quirky art 

banana on banana 
                                               

highlights: chickpea curry and the hare krishna parade marching down the street led by a Latvian woman wearing a sari playing the accordion 
de gusto cafe on the corner of Teatro Iela; highlights: 1.5 lat cheese and garlic mini pizzas and the lovely girl who was patient when we couldn't' decide on a pastry
cheese and garlic mini pizza 
on the corner of mustache and mustache in the Old Town
more Old Town
outside the yarn shop! 
highlights: watching stick thin women in stilettos attempt walking in a straight line. I'm evil
I could write more, but I'm making myself hungry.  Another day.

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