Daugavpils, Rothko and emerald Latgale

Day six is behind us. After breakfast in the apartment we walked to a nearby park in our overnight stop, Daugavpils. The sun is still in top form; the shade is fine.

Daugavpils has about eighty thousand inhabitants, so not exactly small. What we love about Latvia is how spectacularly green it is. The streets are full of trees, there are lawns and parks everywhere, and driving between towns is basically just nature — lakes, bogs, rivers. And storks. Their nests perch on gardens and fields, and right now the chicks’ heads are sticking up everywhere.

After the park we went to the local history museum. The woman at the ticket desk had been to Czechia, climbed Sněžka, and informed us our beer is good. Otherwise, unsurprisingly, the city’s history carries heavy Russian influence.

We wrapped up at the local fortress and the Rothko museum. The more interesting part of the Rothko exhibition happened to be under reconstruction, so we only saw a handful of paintings. And the fortress isn’t really a fortress anymore — people actually live inside it now. Nice touch: they set up the number 747 for us to photograph.

Given the heat, we headed to water, the kids let loose at another water park, and we had a proper cool-down. The water was surprisingly clean — they draw it straight from the river.

Then four hours north, closer to the Estonian border. We’re currently in Valmiera, another gloriously green town. Dinner at Hesburger, the Baltic answer to McDonald’s, with more branches in Finland and the Baltics than its American rival. A quick walk through the park and over to the local attraction — the steep river banks — but the mosquitoes were so savage we beat a hasty retreat.