Riga, Pärnu, Massiaru

April 2019 – backpack travel.

Disclaimer: the sky really was that blue – it wasn’t a fancy camera filter!

I travelled to Riga in Latvia (one of the 3 Baltic States) by plane from Edinburgh, arriving late on Thursday night.

I took 22 bus from the airport to the centre and walked through the underpass to the Wicked Weasal Hostel which I highly recommend. It is clean and the staff are really friendly. I was offered a free beer and there’s tea (including green) and coffee in the well stocked kitchen. I was in a shared dorm with a Spanish soldier and ended up reviving my Spanish until late at night as we swapped life stories!

I stayed less than 12 hours so have very few photos to show for it. On the way out I passed the astonishing golden domes of the Riga Nativity of Christ (Russian Orthodox) Cathedral, and the statue of Rainis (Janis Plieksans, a famour Latvian poet, playwright, translator and politician in the Riga Esplanade park.

I took two buses that day – one to Pärnu along the main highway, and the other which doubled back south for some of the way and then headed slightly inland to Massiaru – four hours in total.

Information about Massia, where I stayed

“MASSIA is open for self-directed residencies – at low cost, without a selection process or the pressure to produce outcomes – all year round, and can host up to 40 residents at any one time. Residents are welcome to participate in the collective organisation of MASSIA.

MASSIA is based in the Estonian countryside near the Baltic Sea, about 180 km south of Tallinn and 140 km north of Riga, Latvia. The residency is situated in a heritage school building in a small village surrounded by forests, fields and wetlands. Nigula, one of Estonia’s oldest bog reserves, starts 5km away. In Kabli, 12 kilometres to the west, you will find the long sandy beaches of the Baltic Sea.

The building is surrounded by 2 hectares of garden offering the possibility to engage with natureculture practices. The nearby forests attract mushroom pickers and plant foragers throughout the year. MASSIA also maintains a herb laboratory with an extensive medicinal herb collection and library which are open for study and experimentation.”

Every day I walk for a couple of hours – on the first day to the south, then to the north, the west and east. The roads are straight and wide, some dry, grey tarmacked and some stony and pale apricot. It is monotonous walking – mentally relaxing.

Standing amongst them
The patience of trees
The forebearance of trees
The pure being of trees
Do you think the birds tickle them?

I find a sunny place in the mornings to do my swinging exercises, T’ai Chi and to ‘Stand Like a Tree’ (a chi gung exercise) for my general health and to counteract the 6-7 hours a day of cerebral work writing hours at my laptop.

I sit in the sun to have my lunch, topping up my vitamin D levels after the Scottish winter. In contrast to my trips to Spain in previous years, I have gone back in time coming here, leaving the Spring behind me, but it is getting warmer every day and the plants are shooting nicely.