Latvians have more fun

Free band concert in Riga's Old Town

The former countries of the Soviet Union are some of our favorite European travel destinations, so when I found out that Air Baltic flies non-stops out of Rome, we decided to leave Mediterranean Italy behind to spend a few days in Riga, Latvia near the Russian border. Switching cultures is always part of the fun of traveling, especially when going from a country such as Italy with its old-school traditions (Lunch at 1 p.m., dinner no earlier than 7:30, one price to drink standing up at a bar and another to sit at a table etc.) to a city like Riga, still spreading economic wings after 24 years of independence from Soviet rule.

Latte served in style at Golden Coffee

Riga represents the New Europe, not in a historical sense, because it's 800 years old, but rather because it's populated with "Let's try anything" 20 and 30-something entrepreneurs who were children when Latvia declared its independence from the Soviets in 1991. Order a latte at Golden Coffee in Riga's Old Town, and you won't be charged extra to relax in an upholstered chair while soft jazz plays in the backround. Neither will you line up Starbucks-style at a cash register. The drink comes artfully layered in a tall glass, served by a young waiter who speaks at three or four languages. It seems we're never far from an atmospheric

Window seat on Art Nouveau architecture at Art cafe Sienna

cafe in Riga. Above is one of my favorites, the Art cafe Sienna in a neighborhood filled with Art Nouveau buildings designed by a Russian architect in the early 1900s. The cafe feels like a room in the apartment of a well-to-do aunt, with high-back chairs, books on fashion and art piled on the windowsills and coffee and tea served in china cups. We've been stopping once or twice a day in places like this, sometimes to get out of the rain, and other times just to rest. Walking and riding the trams is the best way to see the city. We've been logging 7-8 miles of walking per day, sometimes more.

Relaxing at the Aspara

Here's another find, the Aspara, a circular wooden tea house overlooking the Riga canal and a city park. We should import this idea to Seattle. Customers order from a huge tea selection downstairs, then go upstairs and make themselves comfy upstairs on pillows and cushions.

Homestay hosts Ric and Diga

Everyone seems excited about the freedom to try out new ideas for restaurants, shops and hotels of the kind that didn't exist 24 years ago. We're staying at a B and B called simply "Homestay." It's 30 minutes by tram from the city center which is giving us a taste for real Latvian life. Our hosts are Diga Daga, a Latvian, and her partner, Ric Mallard, from New Zealand. They built their home 12 years ago in Mežaparks, an exclusive neighborhood developed in the early 1900s as one of Europe's first garden cities - self-contained, planned communities. A large collection of Art Nouveau and Tudor-style mansions were built close to a lake surrounded by forests and footpaths. Most were built by wealthy Baltic Germans who where resettled elsewhere prior to the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940. The Soviets turned the elegant houses into military camps or shared apartments for dozens of families. Most of the homes were left abandoned or in such poor condition after 1991 that few could afford the cost of fixing them up. That's all changed, of course, and the neighborhood is once again one of Riga's most exclusive. Among the residents are bankers, wealthy Russians, a few Americans and the ambassadors of Germany (house pictured below) and Switzerland.

Ric and Diga's home is huge and eclectic with four rooms set aside for guests. Ric fixes a big breakfast in the morning while Diga gets up early to walk their dog in the woods. When we come home in the evening, they invite us in to chat over glasses of vodka or cups of tea.

The conversation ranges from home construction to the upcoming American election and Putin's moves on neighboring Ukraine. Diga, who was 38 when the Soviet occupation ended, tells us that her father was imprisioned at age 15 in a building that now houses the KGB Museum. She recommends we visit, which we do the next day. A guided tour in English took us into the basement where poltical prisioners were held 15-20 to a cell with no ventilation and only a bucket for a toilet. Occupied first by the Soviets under Stalin in 1941, then by Nazi Germany in 1942 and again by the Soviets until 1991, Latvia, along with the other Baltic countries of Estonia and Lithuania, has a horrific past which is thoroughly covered on this tour as well as on a visit to the Museum of Occupation.

The former headquarters building, called the Corner House, was used as a police station for a time after 1991. It's now empty except for a small portion occupied by the museum. What went on inside was kept secret under the Soviets. Informers summoned to give evidence about their neighbors and friends were issued special security passes to enter. Agents took prisoners from their homes at night, and delivered them to a back entrance in vehicles disguised as milk or bread trucks. Part of the museum display includes chilling videos of former prisioners talking about their experiences. A woman who shared an apartment with a friend tells the story of her friend accusing her of a "crime" so that the woman would be arrested and the friend could have the apartment for herself.

The restored House of Blackheads in the medieval Old Town is probably the most photographed building in Riga. The Blackheads were unmarried members of the merchants' union (Single men were not allowed to join the regular guild). The Old Town attracts the most tourists, but there's much more to Riga. Partly because we've been riding the tram to and from our homestay, we're discovering many interesting things to do and see and places to eat in parts of the city built in the 19th and 20th centuries. In addition to its large collection of Art Nouveau architecture, Riga has beautiful city parks, an impressive Russian Orthodox church, an hourly changing of the guard ceremony at its Freedom Monument, and a 1930 public market housed in former German Zeppelin hangers.

Sightseeing boats ply Riga's canal

Art Nouveau architecture

Russian Orthodox Cathedral 

Changing of the guard

Central market stall housed in a former German Zeppelin hanger

Bins of sauerkraut and more 

One section of the Central Market is devoted to sauerkraut and pickled foods, favorites in the Latvian diet which also tends to be heavy on meat. One way to get around this is to eat at ethnic restaurants, which is this part of world might be Armenian, Georgian or Uzbek. We visited Armenia and Georgia last year and loved the food, so when we spotted the restaurant "Aragats,'' and decided to give it a try. We sat down and were given menus. Then the owner came by to take our order. She looked at my

Herbs cut table side at Aragats

menu and asked, "What are you doing with the man's menu?'' Mine had prices listed while Tom's did not. Apparently someone mixed things up when we sat down, and I ended up with the wrong menu. We joked that we'd take one more man's menu please - for Tom - and asked why the policy of no prices for women.

"We have problems all day," she explained. "When you come here, you can relax. Why not?" Hmm...makes sense I guess, but I wonder what they do when two women come in together. We ordered the traditional spreads made with spinach and walnuts and beans and walnuts, freshly baked bread and a chicken dish with tomatoes and fresh herbs chopped table side. Yerevan's loss was Riga's gain. The family came to Latvia in 1988 after an earthquake in Armenia. They opened their restaurant 20 years ago, four years after the end of Soviet occupation. Owners, Milly, and her mother, Lyubov, 82, credit their good looks to a healthy diet.

Aragats owners Milly, left, and Lyubov, 82. 

Young Latvians are coming up with new takes on traditional cuisine. We found Istaba, a gallery and art cafe, just off the No. 11 tram line, across from a bar called "Belarus Spirit." Downstairs is a boutique stocked with postcards and jewelry made by local artists. Upstairs is a tiny restaurant furnished with a few tables scattered around an open balcony that looks down on the shop where the clerks also give haircuts. "It's artists doing what they want," our waitress explained. "Like free spirits."

Upstairs at Istaba

No chance of getting the wrong menu here because are no menus. You choose pork, lamb, chicken or fish for $15-$17 and everything else is included. The starter is grilled bread with three types of spreads -olive, beat and bean. Next comes a huge salad that looks as if it has just been picked from someone's garden. "Side'' dishes of potatoes, vegetables and coconut rice accompanied my sea bass (head still on) and Tom's lamb chops. It was the best meal of the trip so far, and at $50 including wine and mineral water, our most expensive. Another night we ate in a candlelit cellar in the Old Town. Rozengrals is touristy, for sure, but loads of fun. The food - all dishes that might have been served in medieval times - was surprisingly good, including the honey beer. My trout and Tom's rabbit stew came with two disks of yeast bread wrapped in burlap and sides of of lentils and barley served by a waiter dressed like a monk.

Underground at Rozengrals Medieval restaurant

It's not unusual that the new president of the Ukraine made his fortune running a chocolate company, Chocolate-making is big business all over Eastern and Central Europe. It's also an art form. The shop below specializes in truffles in unusual flavors such as olive, rhubarb and lemon. They're so precious that the clerks offered us just one sample to share.

Latvia's most famous chocolate-maker is Laima, in business since 1870. The Soviets combined several companies under the Laima name during their occupation, and Laima survived after the collapse. A small museum next to its factory welcomes visitors. The self-guided tour includes a tiny cup of drinking chocolate, the chance to make your own chocolate bar and take selfies in various chocolate-themed poses. Latvians really do have more fun!

Thanks for traveling along with us. For more photos, see our Picasa Photo gallery. Look for "Rome" and "Riga"
http://www.baltics2015.puciello.com

The Amalfi Coast: It's made for walking

Positano

The best way to experience any city is by walking. Driving Italy's Amalfi coast is something many travelers think they want to do until they try it, then find they are too stressed by on-coming buses, motorcycles and cars to take thier eyes off the road.

The Amalfi is famous for its steep coastline, with cliffs and ravines plunging to sea level. A two-lane, 43-mile stretch of highway cuts through the mountains between Sorrento and Salerno. Before the road was built in 1840, the towns along the coast were connected by a series of footpaths. Later, as tourism developed, the road was improved for horses and carriages, and later cars. But with the sea on one side and rock cliffs on the other, there's still barely room for two cars, let alone two buses rounding corners in opposite directions.

We've traveled the coast by bus and car in years past, and enjoyed neither very much. Our goal on this trip was to find out what it's like to settle in and stay for a while rather than just taking in the views from scenic overlooks. It seemed right to begin our research with a walk, but only after sampling our first lemon granita - a refreshing semi-frozen slushy topped with slices of fresh lemon, orange and lime.

Towns built into the hillsides can be reached by car or bus from the main road, but getting up or down from there requires either jumping on little van-sized local buses, or navigating maizes of stone staircases. From Positano, we took our inaugural walk up 1,700 steps to the mountain village of Nocelle. Our FitBits went crazy, registering 145 floors compared to an average 5-20 at home. Yes...it would have been smarter to take the bus up and walk down, but the timing wasn't quite right for a late Sunday afternoon visit to a unqiue birds of prey (owls, hawks, falcons etc.) sanctuary called Ali nel Vento - Wings in the wind. The young owners, Ludovica Crudele and Andrea Puglisi, have 13 birds, all born in a captive breeding program, they use for educational training and demonstrations. Visitors can participate hands-on by donning protective leather gloves as Ludovica and Andrea lure the birds with pretend prey - a stuffed toy rabbit (filled with meat) for the hawks and a toy chicken for the vultures, with a treat tucked into its rubber carcus.

The visit and the walk left us thinking about dinner. We found the Ristorante Santa Croce, reached via a steep stone staircase down from Ali nel Vento, or a short flight of stairs uphill from the village bus parking lot. From a window table, we were able to see the lights of Positano come on just after sunset. We ordered a dish we would repeat many times on this trip - an antipasti composed of grilled vegetables marinated in the local olive oil. I counted more than a half-dozen veggies on the plate including two types of bell peppers, eggplant, zucchini, muchrooms, fennel, olives, spinach and carrots. This, along with the house white wine; an order of pumpkin penne with smoked mozzarella for me; spinach and ricotta cheese ravioli for Tom; a mixed green salad and the local limoncello (on the house) came to around 45 euros, or $47.80 including tax and service. The dollar is almost on par with the euro right now ($1.07 to one euro), making even expensive resort areas like the Amalfi coast feel like a bargain compared to a few years ago when the exchange rate reached $1.60.

As part of an assignment for Virtuoso Life Magazine, our home base in Positano was Le Sirenuse, the elegant former summer home of the Sersale family, converted to a hotel in 1951. Our balcony, below, overlooked a pool and below that, a swimming beach and the Marina Grande filled with fishing and sightseeing boats. The landscape is almost vertical, so even though the beach looks far way, it's really just a short distance down several long flights of steps, or, from the Sirenuse, via an elevator that goes part way down.

View from a balcony room at Le Sirenuse

Positano is a resort town that attracts the rich and famous, but it's also a village where real people live, and hang their laundry from houses along "streets" that are really just pedestrianized pathways. Like the Sirenuse, most hotels and shops are owned by second and third generation family members. It's easy to walk into a shop, and get the history of the Amalfi Coast from owners who were born here.

Louisa Barba, 76, above, and her husband, Mario, opened their clothing shop called Louise 56 years ago in the same location on the Via de Mulini where it is today. She traces the evolution of "Moda Positano," a type of free-flowing, colorful fashion, to the artists and writers who popularized the coast as a tourist destination in the 1950s, and inspired young seemstresses like herself to branch out with new ideas. "Positano is color," says Louisa who spends most mornings in the shop while her husband works at their factory. Her only rule: "No black." She recalls when Jackie Kennedy Onassis was a frequent visitor to the coast, and asked her if she could make a few pairs of pantaloons - wide, flowing pants - to wear to the beach. Louisa still carries a version of the pants in her shop today.

Mario Russo runs La Zagara, a caffe started by his father, Giacomo, more than 60 years ago. "You are in a paradise of lemons," he told us, pointing to lemon trees growing in the restaurant's backyard garden. Terraced hillsides above the seaside village are filled with groves of lemon trees, first brought to the coast on trade routes from the Middle East. Large, elongated lemons are used for producing limoncello, a liquor made from soaking the rinds in 96 percent alcohol and sugar.

The Zagara and just about every cafe on the coast sells another specialty, delizia al limone, a sponge cake made with lemon and cream. The Italians call them "nuns' breasts." Mario sells a pizza-size version topped with a strawberry "nipple."

A waitress delivers a tray of "nuns'  breasts" to the Pasticceria Pansa Amalfi

Most people only have a few days to devote to exploring the Amalfi coast. The big question is where to base, Positano, Amalfi or Ravello. There are other towns and villages, of couse, but these are the big three and most convenient when it comes to buses and boats going to Capri, Sorrento or Salerno. Positano is busiest and most compact, good for families who want to find a variety of things to do and see right at their doorstep. Ravello, high up in the mountains, is the coast's cultural center. No beach, but there are hotels with nice pools; good restaurants; summer musical extravaganzas and excellent hiking.

View of Amalfi Town from the Hotel Santa Caterina 

Amalfi itself might be my favorite. The town seems more like a real city than a village, with colorful Arab influences in the archtecture left over from when the town was a major maritime republic, paper-making center and trading partner with the Middle East. Tourists discovered it in the 19th century when the Amalfi Coast was part of the European Grand Tour. It was about that time that Giuseppe Gambardella built a hotel called the Santa Caterina. His son, Crescenzo, carried on, creating a six-room hotel which is now the five-star, 66-room Santa Catarina, pictured below, now run by his daughters, Giusi and Ninni, and their children.

Breakfast on the terrace at Hotel Santa Caterina 

The hotel is just a few minutes drive or a 15-minute walk into town, but staying here feels more like being a guest at a country estate. Rooms overlook the water and private gardens planted with lemon and olive trees. There's no beach, but with a sea-level, salt water pool like this, reached by elevator, who needs one?

Giusi Gambardella is a woman anyone would admire. A mother and grandmother, she is still working at 70. Delivered to my room was an invitation to meet hand-written on a piece of stationary made from Egyptian cotton by the last remaining paper mill in Amalfi. Smartly dressed in dark jeans, leather loafers, a navy blazer and blue-checked scarf, Giusi recalled being groomed by her father to take over the family business, normally a job that would have fallen to the oldest son.

The Santa Caterina's Giusi Gambaradella

"I was supposed to be a boy, so I was treated like one," she explained. When she came home one day with excellent grades in math, "My father said to me, 'you deserve a good prize.' " She was hoping for a treat, but instead was rewarded with a series of private lessons from the hotel's accountant. "I cried," she recalled. But her father assured her she would be grateful later on, and of course he was right.

Happy Hour in Rome

It's been fun discovering the Amalfi Coast in style. Now it's on to Rome for a quick visit, and back to my usual reporting on budget travel finds. The aperativo is the Italian version of our Happy Hour, only here, you buy a drink at a reduced price (in this case, the popular Aperol Spritz) and they bring you what looks like lunch. All this for around $5.

What's up?

We spent our first few hours doing laundry at a friendly Bangladesh "self-service place" where the owner washed and dried it for us, advising us we could save money by using one big washer and one big dryer instead of two small ones. Then it was off to the Piazza Navona to see the street performers, and dinner at Est Artigiani del Gusto, which specializes in homemade pasta and organic ingredients. Trending in Rome: High-top sneakers decorated with sparkles and silver studs and selfie sticks for sale by street vendors for $1. Only complaint: Our hotel is above an East African bar where everyone seems to be having too good of a time.

Bella Napoli!

Pizza was what we were craving, and at a sidewalk cafe shaded by pastel buildings and palm trees, we settled in for lunch and our first impressions of a city most Americans equate with noise, crime and mass confusion.The pizza lived up to its reputation.

Naples claims to be its birthplace, and the best are simple wood-smoked pies sprinkled with basil, fresh tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella. The surprise was the scene that unfolded around us. It was nothing like the grungy, hang-onto-your-bag Naples I had been expecting.

Tom and I watched a shopkeeper arrange a window display of high-heeled shoes in shades of shocking pink and lime green. Waiters in white shirts and black vests rushed drinks to a group of businessmen a few tables away. And when I asked where I could find a store that sold English-language books, someone pointed out Libreria Feltrinelli, three floors of books, music and videos to rival the biggest Barnes and Noble.

Guidebooks and Internet postings warned of drive-by bag snatchers and scooter gangsters, but this was Chiaia, a refined seafront quarter of 19th-century buildings and art-deco style palazzi in what might be considered "modern Naples" in a city with 25 centuries of history. The worst problems I witnessed were cellphone conversations cut short by revving Vespas

These were my impressions of Naples when we visited for the first time a few years ago. It quickly became one our favorite Italian cities. We try to stop over whenever we are in Italy, so here we are again, a few days before a story assignment on the Amalfi Coast. As I write this, I'm taking in the scene from our balcony at the Hotel Il Convento in the Spanish Quarter, a warren of steep, narrow streets crowded with motorcyles and shaded by flapping laundry. Chiaia this neighborhood is not, and that's OK with us. We've wanted to try out Il Convento for some time to find out what it's like to stay in a less refined, but still lively and more central part of Naples. Below is the "view" from our room.

The hotel has 14 rooms inside a restored 500-year-old mansion facing the chapel and convent of Santa Maria Francesca, the former home of a Catholic nun who is the patron saint of pregnant women. No need for an alarm when there are church bells to wake us up at 7 a.m. Mass is held there most mornings. Afterwards, the nuns hold court in an upstairs museum where women come to seek their prayers for fertility and successful births.

Motorcycles whizz up and down the street most of the day and into the night. Dogs bark, and soccer fans cheer and blow their hornes at all hours, the reasons why we found two sets of earplugs placed at our bedside. Our neighbors are fish mongers, butchers and storefront vegetable sellers catering to working-class residents living along streets barely wide enough for one car. The neighborhood is just steps uphill from Via Toledo, a main pedestrianized shopping street lined with pastry shops, cafes and chic clothing stores stocked with sparkled sneakers. Walk here in the afternoon, and you will share the street with the after-work crowd sipping orange cocktails at sidewalk bars. Stroll Via Toledo on a Saturday night and the crowd is mostly teens and 20-somethings doing last-minute shopping at H and M, followed by a late-night snack of gelato or a cone of fries eaten curbside.

Dinner our fist night was at the Hosteria Toledo, a cozy neighborhood place that fills up fast with locals. We sat by the window, people-watching, as we ate an antipasto composed of a dozen grilled veggies, followed by a platter of fried bell peppers, a split order of penne with smoked mozzarella, tomatoes and fresh basil...and later, for Tom, licorice and cannoli-flavored gelato! Add a little wine, water, tax and tip and our bill came to around $35, an example of how far the dollar stretches these days against the falling value of the euro. As the Italians say, "Dieta domani," - Diet tomorrow!

Ruled first by the Greeks, then Romans, Normans, Spanish and French, Naples is divided into 21 zones, each with a collection of monuments, palaces and Gothic and Baroque-style churches, whose plain facades hide interiors filled with frescoes, paintings and elaborate marble works. The Spanish Quarter was developed in the 16th century to house Spanish occupying troops.

We met an Italian friend for lunch near Spaccanapoli, or "Split Naples," the name for the oldest part of Naples, a square-mile area at the heart of the original city, and also the name for the three-mile-long street first laid out by the Greeks that literally divides the center in half.

Mozzarella delivery trucks and motorbikes share streets no wider than alleys with chestnut sellers, pizzerias and stalls stocked with religious icons and souvenir bottles of lemon liquor. Its narrow lanes and piazzas were once a haven for bag-snatching scooter thieves, but much of the area is now off-limits to most vehicles, and Spaccanapoli has become as close to a tourist area as Naples can claim.
Laundry hanging from balconies and vendors hawking figurines depicting a hooked-nose Neapolitan mascot called a Pulcinella are charming symbols of traditional Neapolitan life. But the neighborhood's real treasures are its artisan workshops and its collection of Baroque churches steeped in religious symbolism and mystery.

Apart from being approached by someone selling bootleg cigarettes, it's unlikely that tourists will have any contact with the Camorra, the Neapolitan version of the Mafia. Taking normal precautions (No wallets in back pockets or taking cell-phone selfies on crowded sidewalks), we've been exploring everywhere on foot and on the Metropolitana subway line where many of the stations are decorated with flashy art installations.

Food itself is considered high art, heavy on the red sauce, eggplant, tomatoes, capers, anchovies and other local seafood as opposed to the cream-based, pesto and meat-driven dishes in Northern Italy. Naples is known for producing the best coffee in Italy (some credit the water), and of course, the best pizza. Our friend, Gianna Fusco, who teaches American studies and English in Naples, met us at Osteria Pisano, a little-family owned place near the cathedral, where we ate sautéed octupus, fresh anchovies and slabs of broiled swordfish. No worries about calories when eating like this! The walking helps too. Our fitbits showed we did 20,000 steps our first day out, about 10 miles, and the same the next day.

Gianna teaches at a university near the Duomo, the cathedral of Saint Gennario, named for the patron saint of Naples, believed to protect the residents from eruptions of Mt. Vesuvius. We'll miss by just a week a celebration in May when a sample of the saint's blood liquifies, a mystery believers credit to a miracle, but scientists say is more likely caused by a gell-like chemical easily availlable since antiquity. Oh well, onto modern-day miracles. Strangers are buying coffee for other strangers in a rivival of a pay-it-forward type of scheme called caffe sospeso or "suspended coffee" popular during World War II.

Cafes like this one on the Via Tribunali encourage their regular customers to pay for an extra coffee when they order, then donate the receipt which the cafe keeps until a needy person comes in and asks if a "caffe sospeso'' might be available. If so, he or she gets an espresso at no charge. Naples' fanciest caffe, the Gran Caffè Gambrinus, collects the receipts in an oversize coffee pot, with explanations in six languages. But those looking for a free caffeine fix might do better elsewhere. The cafe was overflowing with well-dressed customers the day we dropped by, but the pot was empty.

If all of this sounds exhausting, Naples makes a convenient jumping off point to peaceful islands. Capri is the most popular, but with so many day-trippers, it's hardly peaceful. Lesser-known Procida is just 40 minutes away by ferry. We found it almost too quiet on a Saturday afternoon in April. If the scene below looks familiar, it may be because you saw Il Positino or The Talented Mr. Ripley, both of which were filmed here. The architecture and views put us in the mood for the Amalfi Coast where we're headed next.