Blog Archive: July 2015

Riga Zoo

| Entertainment | 68 seen

Riga Zoo is a city-owned zoo in Riga, Latvia. It is located in Mežaparks neighbourhood next to the Mežaparks park, on the western bank of Ķīšezers lake. Riga Zoo houses around 4000 animals of nearly 500 species and is visited by 250-300,000 visitors annually. 

Ocassionaly I love visitin Riga zoo, in this article some of my pictures and data when I visited Riga Zoo together with my mom at the start of May 2016

I took my DSLR camera with myself and captured more than 600 images here, just 17 survived to you my dear reader.

Entrance gates at Riga zoo

Riga Zoo is located in a lovely neighbourhood of Mežaparks. 

Flamingos at Riga Zoo

A camel at Riga zoo

A peacock at Riga Zoo

At Riga Zoo

Riga Zoo

Although it's forbidden to feed animals at Riga zoo, some little fella couldn't resist to feed this one with a carrot. Where did he got that carrot?

At Riga Zoo

Giraffe at Zoo

Secretary-bird at Riga Zoo

Now, I enjoyed this creature the most. From Wikipedia: The secretarybird or secretary…

Dobele Castle Ruins

| Tourism objects | 16 seen

Right, lets speak about a topic I like a very much - Castle ruins. Recently I visited Dobele Castle Ruins (Republic of Latvia) and spent here some 30 minutes trying to make some decent photos of this place. History of this castle dates back to the 1335 AD. But prior to that there was another castle (Read more at the end of this post)

Fortification walls of Dobele Castle

Fortification walls of Dobele Castle

Dobele castle ruins

Dobele castle ruins

Here I laid down in the grass and experimented with a photography. Personally I have found this technique gives me best photos in case I'm not using a tripod. Actualy I did use here a small gorilla pad tripod.  In a result I got a pretty interesting image (at least I believe so)

Dobele castle ruins

Again, the same technique

Don't climb up there

You can get a decent fine for doing that. The sign stands here from times Latvia did use Latvian Lats as its national currency. 250 Ls equals to some EUR 355.

Inside territory at Dobele castle

View to the Dobele town from Castle ruins…

Dobele Evangelical Lutheran Church

| Churches and Monasteries | 7 seen

I was surprised to learn that this church is more than 500 years old. Prior I learnt that I was even more surprised to learn that Dobele town has a lovely historical centre. This church is located just next to this historical centre.

I took my camera and tried to make some great pictures here.

Dobele Evangelical Lutheran Church

I believe all is said with just this one photo. Just marvellous.

Entrance at this church

Info table

This church is now already 520 years old

Back view

As usual in Latvian churches, the doors were closed (some construction works were held inside) and I hadn't any chance to photograph inside interior.

About Dobele Evangelical Lutheran Church

The Dobele Evangelical Lutheran Church is situated in the town centre next to the Marketplace. The church was built in 1495 of the order of Valter fon Pletenberg, Master of the Livonian Order. The church was rebuilt for several times, the tower steeple got its present look in 1907. In 1995, on the 500 anniversary of the church, a new roof was covered and the outer walls were painted. 

The Historical Centre of Dobele - Marketplace Square

| Tourism objects | 10 seen

Dobele is a small town located in historical region of Zemgale in Latvia some 60 km South West from nations capital city Riga. One thing a tourist should visit while in Dobele definitely is it's historical centre - marketplace square. In recent years this place has gone through some renovation and last time I visited it - it looked just amazing.

Well if you are hoping to see both old and new architecture, like it's for example in German city Bonn's marketplace, then no - you wont find here any skyscrapers. For some reason I got this feeling that time at this place has stood still from some 19th century.

Historical centre of Dobele

A tourist info board explaining history of this place

A fountain as central element here

I must admit a very interesting design for this fountain

Dobele Evangelical Lutheran Church

This church has been built on AD 1495

Fountains built in the pavement 

I used a gorilla pad and got a lovely angle

Dwelling house and a fountain

Speaking of this dwelling house - a typical Latvian 19th century dwelling house

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