Tripod vs Bipod

Today we decided to walk to the Riga radio and tv tower.
Getting there was a bit of a trek, not helped by conflicting information on trip advisor.

It didn't look that far away, but was one of those places that didn't seem to get any closer the more you walked towards it.

We arrived there and seemingly there's just the one lady who works there; she took our admission fee (which she asked for in german, before asking if we were Norwegian??) then showed us to the lift, all the while trying to tell us a bit about the place in a mixture of languages.
She seemed surprised we had walked, she said it was 5km from the city centre, it didn't feel that far.

The tower is on Rabbit Island (Zakusala) which used to be part of lots of little islands that all eventually combined into one. It used to be home to many Latvians, with as many as 1000 houses on the island, but strangely they all left and the island is pretty desolate now.

The tower is the tallest in the Baltic countries and third tallest in Europe at 368 metres. Construction started on the tower in 1979 and the first broadcast was in December 1985.

Between the pillars of the tower, there's is the technical building which houses administration offices, technical rooms and transmitters.

The three supports are the main supporting structure of the tower; foundations are 30 metres below ground into the bedrock.

Two of the supports contain express lifts, which have to slope their way up the curve of the leg; the ride to the viewing platform at 97 metres takes 42 seconds.

The view once up there is great; with panoramic views of the city. The viewing platform is the second row of windows visible on the photo.
It was a fairly grey morning, but the clouds lifted while we were there so we could see right to the coast!



As we left the tower, I remembered to set my walkmeter app going. We walked back into town for some lunch, then back across the river to the Railway museum (which wasn't that great).
By the time we got back to the hotel, we had walked 7.5km, plus the 5 to the tower. No wonder my bipods are aching!

All photos are now on Flickr