Liepaja

[July 2 - 3]

Everyone in Riga was raving about Liepaja, the western beach town. Dean and I decided to take a mini break out there for one night. It was a three hour bus ride where we saw lots of storks in the miles of farm fields along the way.



Liepaja has only around 80,000 people and that makes it a very cute town. Lots of old two-story wooden buildings line the streets and everything is within walking distance. Some of the houses have a beautiful design but are in a state of disrepair.



We only had a full day to explore, so we headed out to Karosta (War Harbor), which was run by the Soviets during the Occupation and completely closed to civilians. Here, they have an interesting prison to explore. There are all sorts of stories of the cruel happenings here and the supposed ghosts.

You can even arrange to stay the night and have guards harass and wake you up. They give you a survival certificate in the end. We decided to pass and go for a good night of sleep elsewhere.

We toured around many of the cells. One had no windows and chains in the wall. It was the punishment room and contained lots of original prisoner graffiti. The photo below translates into "Exit from Hell."



Dean had fun posing in the office headquarters with all the old memorabilia.



That evening, there was a concert near the beach. We watched a few bands perform and wandered around the games area. Between bands, the MCs would play funny games with the audience, like calling up people to measure which women have the biggest bust and which men have the biggest beer belly.

At the games area, Dean found an amusing one where you try to fling a rubber chicken into a metal bucket for cheap made in China prizes. At first, he was on fire, but then the last few chickens flew too far.



The next morning we took a nice walk on the beach. It was so foggy that the sky seemed to fade into the sand. We hurried to catch the street car and take our bus back to Riga. We had a song festival to attend that night.