Latvia

We went buying in Latvia and it was pretty amazing! There will be some beautiful Latvian stuff in the shop soon. For now there's Takako's beautiful I heart Riga print in the webshop.

We arrived and went straight to our apartment which was an amazing, massive building - with amazing features like a tiled stove in each room. I liked this room best - which was painted in no less than 5 shades of pink.

Then we headed into Riga itself: browsing markets and shops . . . 

Checking out the views . . .

Everything in Riga is on a large scale: it feels spacious and quite imposing in places.

Finally we got on a very crowded bus and headed out to . . . the best craft fair in the world.

Full of amazing textiles, woodwork and pottery.

(I bought those slippers)

Latvian folk are very proud of their culture and traditional dress: and so they should be. It was so nice to see people of all ages dressing up, dancing, selling their wares and demonstrating traditional crafts.

The fair was in a forest so when we got tired we just scrambled up a nearby slope for a sit down (and maybe the odd bit of fried meat and potatoes).

We also had fun buying a lot of these amazing masks! They're made by a 77 year old lady from papier mache and they're so sweet. She's so clever at making nice expressive pieces: we ended up buying quite a few! Come see them in the shop soon.

It was a flying trip all in all but we did manage to make time for an enormous slice of cake in Riga's best tea shop: it has a glass upstairs level with beautiful views over a park and river.
Yep!
Well deserved.