After another day of sailing at sea, we reached Riga, Latvia. Latvia is the second small country on the Baltic Sea which belonged to the Soviet Union. It is very different from Estonia. Not only are the languages and customs different, but also their outlook and habits. Janice was determined to locate some gifts for grandchildren here - our number one goal in this town - so our town walk had to end at some shopping markets. There was a beautiful building when we reached the older part of town. On the left side is the Tourist Center. It was an amazing building!
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A striking bridge also in town.
This is right on the way to the town center too!!
We visited a church in the middle of town, and the Cat House, and we walked passed numerous Cafes, which make this town famous!
The new library was just across the Bridge, I walked across the river to see it!
Finally, we got to the market:
Its a huge place and you can buy almost anything! Janice found the wool vests for the boys there:
The vests are hanging in the back! And she was ready to carry them back to the ship with her backpack!
There were plenty of flowers, but only a bottle of wine was added to the bag!
This flyer was coming past our ship when we sailed out of the harbor. It was a good sunny day!
The third country I wanted to visit was Lithuania, whose only seaport is the city of Klaipeda, where we stopped next. It was the second Sunday and Janice decided to tour with Kai on a bus while I went out to walk around the city. By that time, I was pretty good at walking on the cobble stone paved roads! I walked to the old town square center first and I saw most of the city pretty well after almost 8 miles of walking!
This chimney sweep is famous!
There is a German influence in many buildings
The old town center square
This monument celebrates the time when Klaipeda rejoined Lithhuania!
The Sculpture Park was a bit out of the old town on the map. The name made me curious, so I decided to walk over there. There was a military ceremony with a band playing when I arrived. I asked a lady standing beside me if she spoke English. When she said yes, I asked her what was going on and then she told me it was a Heritage Day Celebration. She was kind enough to translate the whole proceeding for me. After the ceremony, there was a speaker who had personally experienced some of the struggles of the past and knew personally that this Sculpture Park had been a cemetery with over 40 thousand people burried there, in two layers. Under the Soviets, it was ransacked, with tombstones, iron works, and other precious items stolen, and the bodies removed. Afterwards the Russian KGB had used the place to hide the bodies of those they slaughtered. I learned that both sets of this lady's grandparents were the victims of expulsion by the Russians to Siberia.
This is one of the few non-sculptures on the grounds. It was erected to remeber a Jewish man who donated quite a bit to the city for the reconstruction.A very strange memorial for a Jew!
The man in the center with a hat was the lecturer.
A scupture in the park
This is the lady, in front of the 1923 Revolution Memorial!
We walked with the lecturerer around the park for quite a while, while she told me the story of her family. Meanwhile the lecturerer was telling us about the significance of specific sites on the park grounds. Clearly I cannot remember them all to repeat them to you! They all, however, gave me an image of their difficult history, which left an imprint on my mind - an image which I can never forget. Thank you very much, young lady. I believe that you are very optimistic about the future of Lithuania. I have omitted your name here but this brief encounter will be engraved in my memory of you and your city forever. After we had a cup of coffee together, she took me to the Blacksmith Ironworks Museum, and bought me a loaf of Lithuian dark rye bread, which we all enjoyed on the boat!
Our final stop before returning to Dover was Copenhagen. Janice and Kai went for a Castles Tour outside the city, and I went for a walk again, by myself, as I had not visited this city before. I walked 9 miles there and I can tell you that it is a very nice city. Most of the people spoke English. Some stores take euros but give no change and no place takes dollars!
There were statues everywhere. Some are famous, such as the Little Mermaid: 
Surrounded by people all around!
But some are not very well known, such as this one: 
Ha! I bet that you have not seen this one before!
This one I actually liked: 
I consider it the best!
The one on the pier, to welcome and say goodbye to everyone: 
They call her Dolly because of her looks.
But she is so innocent!
Other features which impressed me in the town were:
The tunnel bridge!
The church with a fountain in front!
A row of buildings
Another statue, of course! 