Riga and $tockholm

Made it to Riga. It was cute. Not as cute as Tallinn, but still fun.

The Three Brothers are the oldest complex of houses in Riga, and each represents various periods of development of dwelling house construction in the Middle Ages.

We stumbled on this amazing bakery called Regensis. It was awesome. I realize this isn't a food blog, so I'll limit myself to 4 photos. :)

The first day I got cherry strudel. You can see it on the far right.

The second day I discovered this wonderful little treat. It's called biezpiena kuka which means "Rhoda could eat 50". It is basically whipcream with lemon zest and fruit on top. I looked for recipes, but of course they are all in Latvian. This will be a bigger project when I get home.

Nativity of Christ Cathedral

We went to the Riga Car Museum. Isn't this motorcycle silly? They had lots of fun cars there.

The House of the Blackheads was erected during the first third of the 14th century for the Brotherhood of Blackheads, a guild for unmarried German merchants in Riga. The structure was bombed by the Germans June 28, 1941 and the remains demolished by the Soviets in 1948. The current reconstruction was erected from 1995 to 1999.

$tockholm

This is Riksbankshuset. Formerly the Central Bank but used by the Parliament since 1983.

Riksdagshuset. Another government building.

Storkyrkan Church

I really loved this statue. It is called St George and the Dragon by Bernt Notke. The dragon's horns are elk horns!

Schantzka Huset. According to legend each of the white stones (90) commemorates a victim in the Blood-bath in 1520.

Riddarhuset (House of Nobility) Maintains records and acts as an interest group on behalf of the Swedish nobility.

If you win the Nobel Prize, this is where you'll eat dinner in December. The Stockholm City Hall. Our tour guide told us that each winner sits by a member of royalty on one side of them. I thought that was stupid. I'd rather bring two guests and sit by someone I like.

This is the Nordiska Muskeet. A museum. Unfortunately we didn't have time to go in. :(

Finally, we went to the biggest tourist trap in all of Stockholm. Stayed for about 15 minutes and left. But, hey. We did it.