Cows and The Straits in Ventspils

Yesterday we arrived in Ventspils on the late side of the afternoon, when the majority of "Cow Parade" visitors were already beginning to disperse. We, in turn, briskly headed to the information tent to try and get hold of some of Lemberg's money - "vents" - which were exchanged for points accumulated on visitventspils.com. The vents come in banknotes of 100, 50, 20, 10, and 5 units, with an exchange rate of 100 vents = Ls 1.

Then we strolled just as briskly along the harbour promenade, viewing and photographing the exhibited cows - among them a storm cow, a police cow, a golden cow, a herb cow, a light cow, and others. Multicoloured, vivid, surreal, sarcastic, symbolic, and every kind imaginable. In total, 24 newly created cows participated in this year's international art and patronage project.

As always, thought had been given to keeping visitors informed. At the very first stop, on entering Ventspils, a walking map could be picked up at the shopping centre (prepared in several languages), showing all the cows' locations. We encountered the first cow right there by the small river at the fountain. The atmospheric fountain cow from Estonia (artist Merike Estna) grazed amid the waters, dazzled from all sides by camera flashes.

Yet across the road, on a meadow hillock, a no less interesting cow drew surprised looks and attention - one made entirely of climbing plants and flowers. It was not created as part of the art project, but is a feature of the city's green ornamentation.

At 16:00, brisk order-keepers made their rounds of the promenade and hurried the vendors to pack up their tents. We overheard a Lithuanian vendor protesting loudly that she wasn't being allowed to make her living cuts here while the promenade was still full of people. "Ah, but the permit was only bought until 16:00," the bold order-keepers replied. Quite a spectacle! Meanwhile, the Latvian lads obediently packed up, casting a glance from the corner of one eye to see if any customer was still hovering. Then quietly sold us some sugar-roasted almonds - very tasty, incidentally, and still warm.

Then a short walk along the South Pier. Druva ice cream at a beach kiosk for Ls 0.50 - two scoops (flavour of your choice) in a wafer cone together with the salty sea breeze turned out to be quite good, and extraordinarily cheap by Riga standards.

When we arrived at the Reņķis Garden car park half an hour early (The Straits concert start was marked as 20:00 on the tickets), there were few people, which was surprising, as last year we had stood in a rather long queue before the Paul Young concert. There were plenty of seats to be had. It was as though everyone had been notified by email in advance that the artists would take the stage an hour later. The local warm-up band Sweetwaterz performed. In the meantime, people gathered at the tents where draught beer and cider of various producers and types were available in abundance, along with the Latvian national dish shashlik and other snacks.

Sitting became rather cold, so we had to go in search of hot coffee and small pasties. Fortunately, around 21:00 the guest artists took the stage. The sound and performance were up to the mark - a pleasure to listen to. Almost all the most popular old Dire Straits songs were performed. The crowd, now gathered by the stage, whistled with enthusiasm, applauded, filmed and photographed with various devices, and were reluctant to let the musicians leave the stage.

When, as the concert ended, I made my way out of the crowd, I noticed that Reņķis Garden had wrapped itself in a white, almost impenetrable fog. And so the night was bright, bright indeed - though the return journey to Riga was quite tiring.